The Joy of Being the “Default Parent”

Published on January 14, 2026January 15, 2026 by EF TeamLeave a comment

The “default parent” is the one who carries the so-called “invisible load” of administrative tasks related to the children, but more significantly, she bears the emotional tasks of raising children.

Author and mother Gina Bontempo noted on X recently that the online uproar over a woman being the “default parent” in her child’s life smacks of the lie that men and women can, and should, be treated as interchangeable.

For those unfamiliar with internet lingo, the phenomenon in question is as old as mothers and fathers themselves, extending beyond internet scuffles. The “default parent” is the one who carries the so-called “invisible load” of administrative tasks related to the children (doctor’s appointments, school events, family vacations). But more significantly, she bears the emotional tasks of raising children. Mothers will often complain that their sleep-deprived or sick or developmentally fragile children will flock to them even when the mothers are burned out, while their husbands stand unencumbered and unneeded right beside them.

It’s not that this isn’t true of most parent-child relationships, but that mothers need to make peace with what is both natural and, truly, a brief blessing. Children’s natural preference for their mother is a biological reality. There’s no use in fostering resentment towards either your husband or your needy children about it.

“Obviously Mom is the one that babies need and want most when they’re hungry or tired or in pain,” Bontempo wrote. “To pretend otherwise is to pretend like men and women, fathers and mothers are interchangeable. We aren’t. The feminist-coded mothers on social media complaining about the stress of always being the ‘default parent’ live in a fantasy world where moms and dads are exactly the same, perfectly equal and switchable when it comes to young children. Very dysfunctional thinking.”

The very phrase “default parent” is the type of genderless word-slop that arises from a society that views differences between men and women as symptoms of systemic prejudice, even when these differences are inherent and natural.

Rather, the “default parent” has the joy of being, albeit temporarily, her child’s almost sole source of comfort and rest. The mother has the immense privilege of satisfying all of her child’s needs in the first year or so of his or her life.

Indeed, few talk about what must be the frustrations of the parent who is not “default.” My toddler son is already starting to flip the script and as a mother I have been able to see how hard it can be to be the person your child does not primarily want for comfort.

To be your child’s “default,” to be recognized as his primary source of comfort and even nourishment is a blessing that the moms of TikTok would do well to enjoy before it ends.

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

Nordic governments most radical at UN

Published on January 6, 2026January 6, 2026 by EF TeamLeave a comment

When it comes to the sexual revolution, the Nordic governments continue to show they are among the most radical in the world. This was borne out again at the most recent session of the Universal Periodic Review, where governments review each other’s human rights records.

The Nordics continued to pressure other governments on abortion, gender ideology, and extreme sex-ed. In the most recent session of the UPR, where thirteen countries were reviewed, there were 35 instances where governments were pressured to liberalize their abortion laws. Twelve of them came from Nordic governments, which include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—but predominantly Iceland. Iceland generates by far the most abortion pressure out of all 193 UN member states at the UPR—around 20 percent of the total in the last completed review cycle.

The Nordic countries called for abortion to be legalized, decriminalized, and made more accessible, including by limiting the right of conscientious objection by health care providers.

On the issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, the governments under review were pressured 160 times, 33 of which were from Iceland (close to 20 percent). These recommendations included urging the Marshall Islands to legalize same-sex marriage and “introduce a transparent administrative self-identification process for legal gender recognition free from intrusive requirements.” Iceland and Norway urged several countries to decriminalize same-sex sexual behavior and enact comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation that included sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories.

Iceland also recommended that Liberia, Malawi, Mongolia, and Panama guarantee that comprehensive sexuality education be provided, both in and out of school settings.

Nordic countries are among the top funders of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women, which in turn promote SRHR in developing countries where they work. This is despite the fact that the UN General Assembly has never accepted the SRHR terminology—despite decades of repeated efforts by the Nordics and their allies.

Unlike the U.S., which is a bigger donor but undergoes significant shifts in its foreign policy depending on which party controls Congress and the White House, the Nordic countries have maintained consistent political and financial support for SRHR over time. This has included Sweden’s launch of the first explicitly feminist foreign policy in 2014, a 2020 statement from Nordic prime ministers opposing any restrictions on abortion, and a 2024 joint statement from Nordic gender ministers in support of LGBTI rights.

In addition to their funding for UN agencies earmarked for promoting SRHR, Nordic countries also strategically fund activist groups within developing countries, particularly where social norms remain largely pro-life and pro-family. In 2014, the Queen of Denmark announced a new funding mechanism called Amplify Change, which supports “grassroots movements for SRHR.” It has provided grants for groups promoting abortion, “sex work,” comprehensive sexuality education, and reducing stigma around LGBT issues.

Despite continued Nordic investment in international SRHR, Sweden decided in 2022 to abandon the explicitly “feminist” framing of its foreign policy after a right-wing bloc won in a general election. This year, Norway’s left-wing government narrowly held on to power despite gains on the right. However, while populist parties make gains in the Nordic region, often motivated by mass immigration, it remains to be seen whether this will translate into a rightward movement on social issues in their foreign policy.

By Rebecca Oas. 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.

Townsville miracle baby home after being born at 22 weeks

Published on November 20, 2025November 24, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

A tiny premature Queenslander is being hailed as a miracle baby; his recovery illustrates the reality and the injustice of late-term abortion.

In a deeply moving story out of Queensland, a tiny baby born at just 22 weeks and six days gestation has finally gone home after surviving a staggering 139 days in hospital. George Lassig Hodgetts, who weighed only 510 grams at birth, defied the odds when he and his twin brother Jude were born prematurely at Townsville University Hospital. Sadly, Jude passed away at five weeks. But George’s survival and discharge is being hailed as nothing short of a miracle.

From the moment of his birth, George’s life hung in the balance. His parents, Maddy and Damien, made the courageous decision to ask doctors to do everything they could to save them, despite being told of the extremely high risks. Their plea represents the essence of the pro-life conviction: that even the smallest and most fragile lives are worth fighting for.

Over almost five months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), George endured a series of life saving interventions. He received blood transfusions, six weeks of antiviral therapy, and constant respiratory support.³ Skilled neonatal specialists, nurses, and doctors pulled out all the stops, demonstrating both the capacity of Queensland’s health system and the moral imperative to preserve life at its most vulnerable.

When George finally left the hospital, he weighed around 5 kg and was thriving, having passed checks on his heart, hearing, and vision.⁴ His progress is a clear demonstration that surviving extreme prematurity is not just possible, but that with proper care, life can flourish even in its smallest form.

But George’s journey also raises important political and ethical questions for Queensland. As medical technology advances, babies born earlier and earlier can survive, yet our policies often fail to reflect this reality. His story stands as a powerful response to arguments in favour of late term abortion. Instead of assuming premature babies cannot survive, George shows that with compassion, resources, and determination, even the tiniest among us can beat the odds.

His story also highlights the importance of continued investment in neonatal services statewide. The level of care he required and the immense emotional toll on his family emphasise that Queensland must prioritise NICUs, staff resourcing, and parental support systems. Protecting vulnerable life is not just an ethical stance, it is a practical political commitment.

For the pro-life community, George’s survival is more than a touching human story, it is evidence. Evidence that life in the womb is precious. Evidence that viability is shifting earlier. Evidence that the smallest Queenslanders deserve the greatest protection.

As George’s family begins their life at home, their story remains a reminder: Every life deserves a chance. And when we choose life, even when it is fragile, miracles can happen.

By Melanie Cliff. This article first appeared at Cherish Life and is republished here with permission. Cherish Life Queensland was founded in 1970 (as Right to Life Queensland), to advocate for the right to life from conception until natural death and remains one of the largest pro-life organisations in Australia.

SOURCE: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/premature-baby-finally-home-after-139-days-in-hospital/news-story/d88adac05d041ac98e62afecc4b60bfc

Gen Z, social media, and envy

Published on November 18, 2025November 24, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

Social media causes desensitisation to things that should disturb us and hypersensitivity to things that should not disturb us. It afflicts Gen Z with a toxic culture of envy.

My generation, Gen Z (born between 1996 and 2010), finds itself in the throes of individual depression, pessimism about the future, and a strong tendency not to take personal responsibility. As a 20-year-old college student, I have witnessed this firsthand. I believe much of the problem can be traced to social media and its creation of a make-believe world, a world defined by pronounced social envy.

Only 39 percent of Generation Z aged 18-29 believe that achieving the American dream is still possible, while 60 percent do not.¹ It is disheartening, to say the least, that a large majority of our youth do not believe in the American tradition of achieving success through hard work and determination.

Gen Z has grown up in a different world from previous generations—an online world, one that immerses them in fantasy. Fantasy leads inevitably to disappointment as this made-up online world creates unrealistic expectations for the real world.

Abundant research shows that social media is harmful to youth. Social media use is correlated with rising instances of self-harm and suicidality in boys and girls.² At the same time, American girls use social media far more than boys.³ While boys are off playing video games or consuming online porn, girls succumb to toxic self-comparison at a time when they are most confused about their identity. This allows them to be taken advantage of by predators, by influencers espousing extreme ideology, and by other women who tell them to prioritise themselves above all others.

The results of this gender gap are ominous for the future of America. More young men than young women report wanting to have children.⁴ At a time when America’s birth rate continues to plummet below replacement, Gen Z is dropping the ball on family formation. It is not just apathy towards having a family. Gen Z is growing more anti-capitalist, more anti-natalist and more callous about the deaths of others. Reactions on social media in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s horrific assassination come to mind.

Social media causes desensitization to things that should disturb us and hypersensitivity to things that should not disturb us. It afflicts Gen Z with a toxic culture of envy.

The inside view

Generation Z’s ailments are clear from the outside, but even more so from the inside. It is important to note that the author is a member of Gen Z himself, born just a few years after the turn of the millennium. I have been spared the despair of my generation because of my family.

Raised in a large family with close bonds with my siblings, I was never alone in the sense that many Gen Zers report themselves feeling. My parents ran a household that was strong in moral teachings and founded upon family values. Furthermore, my parents had the foresight to withhold social media from my siblings and me far longer than most of our generation. We were not subject to the culture of envy that we watched our friends endure. I made it all the way to my 19th birthday before I became curious, suspecting that social media might prove useful or practical as an adult in college.

I deleted all my accounts in less than a year. My experience on social media was far from anything I had expected. Perhaps I was naive to expect pictures of pleasant scenery and the occasional post about a family trip. But I could not have foreseen the extent to which social media is riddled with depravity, dishonesty and delusion. What I saw as an outsider to my own generation made plain precisely why my close friends and peers seemed so distant and anxious. It was clear why they had lost faith in themselves, their communities and the American dream.

The reason social media has had such a horrendous effect on American youth is that, fundamentally, social media is not what it seems. The photos and videos that are posted online are often edited into an unrecognizable version of the truth. What is presented as a casual selfie is often an hours-long commitment that requires professional equipment, painstaking attention to detail and constant revision. Instead of honest photos, our youth sees perfection. But it is perfection presented as something attainable. Or rather, something that seems attainable, but isn’t attainable in reality. This is the root of Gen Z’s envy.

Incessant comparison

Social media’s inherent culture of envy is bad enough. But what makes it particularly dangerous to Gen Z is that members of my generation are obsessed with comparing themselves to their peers. Gen Zers average about nine hours of screen time every day.⁵ It is not unusual to have a screen time of 10 or even 14 hours a day. Some of my friends can spend 20 hours a day looking at screens.

Social media takes up a significant amount of these appalling screen times. Sixty percent of Gen Z spends at least four hours a day on social media, and 22 percent report spending seven or more hours a day.⁶ Time spent on social media is time not spent socializing, working, exercising, reading, spending time with family, and more. Rather than engage with the real world as much as possible, a sizable majority of Generation Z spends the greater part of their day in an online fantasy.

Living in the fictional world of social media is a major cause of Gen Z’s pessimism, and Gen Z’s members know it. About 83 percent of America’s youth have tried to limit their social media use, albeit largely unsuccessfully.⁷ Gen Z recognizes the harms of social media as a group. But while 48 percent of teenagers agree that social media is harmful to people their age, just 14 percent believe that social media affects them personally.⁸

What these statistics reveal is an element of denial. The youth culture’s expectation of perfection requires hiding imperfections. But upon a closer look, it becomes clear that this perfectionism is a symptom of envy. The desire to be as affluent, powerful, attractive and popular as influencers on social media comes from spending too much time in the online world. Carefully curated posts that are funneled to the right audiences create an infinite network of nested mini-worlds in which our youth have become lost. The resulting lack of direction is part of why Gen Z feels so pessimistic. Generation Z’s pessimism expresses itself in many ways: class resentment, hetero-pessimism, apathy and sensitivity.

Class resentment is the byproduct of economic forces on social media. Online sites kick consumer culture into hyperdrive. It begins with extravagant displays of wealth. Influencers who advertise perfect dress, flawless appearance, ideal travel experiences, luxurious homes and fine dining inevitably attract viewers for the simple reason that wealth is desirable. Considering that Gen Z is significantly more dissatisfied with their economic situation than other generations, it is no surprise that young people are drawn toward such content in large numbers.⁹ Much of Generation Z sees what they want but cannot have, for hours at a time each day.

Displays of unrealistic wealth

Individual envy is then amplified into pessimism. Social media algorithms recommend to users what they are most likely to click on. The more outraged users are, the more likely they are to become even more outraged and to be connected to other users who reinforce their indignation. Since Gen Z is uniquely susceptible to economic pessimism, they are at a greater risk of falling victim to this outrage. As time passes, young social media users fall farther down the rabbit hole, becoming more radicalised and more pessimistic.

The consequence is a strong current of anticapitalism and economic pessimism that views the American system as fundamentally unfair. And so long as they remain isolated in their online echo chambers, my peers will continue to be overexposed to the shortcomings of American capitalism and underexposed to its many benefits.

The hyper-individualization of Gen Z encouraged by social media applies to dating and family dynamics as well as economic concerns. Just as algorithms radicalize the youth into anticapitalism, they do the same for hyperfeminism.

Recent surveys continue to show that young women are ranking their career and individual interests ahead of starting a family.¹⁰ This is unsurprising given the prominence of anti-male trends on social media. As of late, a proliferation of social media posts with the hashtag childfree suggests that childlessness as an identity is growing.

There are also movements encouraging women to become “boysober” and swear off all emotional and physical relationships with men.¹¹ Some women online are using the term “mankeeping,” which is primarily used to complain about the burdens of supporting their partners through hard times. Popularized in 2016, the MenAreTrash movement swept social media platforms and gained rapid popularity for disparaging men and heterosexual dating in any way possible.

Toxic feminism

The online environment culminates in a general pessimism about dating and family called “hetero-pessimism.” Originally coined in 2019, hetero-pessimism refers to a movement where women are ashamed of being straight and view “heterosexuality as a prison within which they are confined against their will.”¹² Gen Z women are especially vulnerable to trends like hetero-pessimism.

Again, considering the radicalising nature of social media algorithms, it is easy for girls to fall for ideas that promote individualism and the prioritisation of self over pair-bonding or community. As a result, teenage girls sometimes enter the dating scene with unrealistic expectations because of exposure to fake relationships on social media. Young men who encounter such women are then treated to a rude awakening where they are expected to act as an accessory to a woman who is more interested in superficial pleasures and material wealth than true partnership.

It is worth pausing to emphasize that this is a somewhat extreme characterization of a complex phenomenon. Not all young women who use social media are anti-male. Yet, anti-male sentiment weaves itself into social media in various ways.

More widespread than hetero-pessimism is the creation of echo chambers by social media algorithms that amplify and radicalise opinions and perspectives.

Consider the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk. In the era before social media, it may be true that the victim of such a horrific and violent act would have received near total sympathy from the American public, including its youth. Regardless of whether this was the case in the past, it is certainly not true now.

Apathy—and in some cases jubilation—from the left over the murder of Charlie Kirk is not originally because of inherent cold-heartedness and cruelty. It is because of desensitisation. This is an important distinction. Desensitisation by social media is what leads to coldheartedness and cruelty when left unchecked. Such apathetic and jubilant individuals did not express sympathy because that is not what they were shown. Social media algorithms likely predicted that such viewers, especially some progressive youth, would not have clicked on such content. Instead, they were fed increasingly extreme posts that dismissed or mocked the death of Charlie Kirk. And in viewing such posts, their views were validated and radicalised instead of moderated.

The condoning of Kirk’s assassination that spread across the internet is emblematic of a growing apathy towards the plight of persons outside each individual’s social media bubble. Within these anonymous echo chambers, algorithms supercharge this apathy into a callous joy that is not just inappropriate, but dangerous.

The tyranny of online policing

Online policing of political correctness reached a fever pitch during the Covid-19 pandemic, when American society was as far from the real world as it had ever been. This had a detrimental effect on Generation Z, given that they came of age around the use of chosen pronouns, progressive terminology like “safe spaces,” and leftist ideology that accused most social and economic institutions of being inherently bad. So rather than work to develop empathy for those different from them, Generation Z was immersed in a ruthless online culture that focused on the faults of those who were different from them, instead of what we have in common as Americans.

Generation Z is steeped in a fabricated version of reality that amplifies outrage, promotes individualism and heightens our differences. The culture of envy engendered by social media has made our youth so pessimistic that many of them no longer believe in the American dream. Who can blame them? Because of social media, much of Gen Z is entering adulthood unchallenged, un-self-aware, and unable to see that they are part of something greater than themselves.

As a member of Gen Z, I place my hope in those of us who are strong enough to stop looking at our screens and start looking at all that is happening around us. For when we do so, we begin to see that the beauty of reality is far more rewarding than any online illusions of perfection.

This article is published by the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation in St Louis, Missouri, USA. The original article is available from the foundation’s website: www.mindszenty.org. The Mindszenty Report is not copyrighted, and readers are invited to forward copies to their local bishops, priests and pastors.

A story of abortion coercion

Published on November 12, 2025November 24, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

This testimony by Anne Sherston of Tasmania’s Human Life Protection Society is a reminder that a degree of coercion is a common factor among many abortions. Anne’s abortion at the age of 16 is a vivid example of that tragedy.

by Anne Sherston

No choice

Many people can’t put into words what they are feeling after an abortion, and sometimes, that might never even happen. I can explain, however, that there is a way to do this, and that is through spiritual healing…. If I hadn’t experienced my own healing, I would not have been able to do that either…. so now I am in a position to share my story with you.

I had an abortion in 1975, when I was only 16 years of age. This was not my choice…. and there is no need in telling you who that person was who made that choice for me, because it doesn’t change anything, and I have forgiven that person a long time ago…. Also, it doesn’t change what I went through for years later, in fact for more than 29 years later…. During that time, I went through many emotions, anger, hatred, loneliness, and even being suicidal…

Close to suicide

The scariest time of all was when I was 18 years old and only been married a few months. I was coming home from work on a train in Sydney. Keep in mind that trains didn’t have automatic doors back then. If any of you remember those trains, they were called the red rattlers…

I was standing at the open doors of the carriage with my toes just over the edge, contemplating to step out…. I remember that day as if it was yesterday…. Hindsight is a marvellous thing….

I remember a presence behind me. I didn’t look around, however, that presence was telling me to step back and that he was ready to catch me, he was there for me. Now so many years later I know that was God…. God was with me at that moment and made sure I didn’t go any further. That was back in 1977 (48 years ago and 2 years after the abortion).

It took me another 25 years after that to reach out for help. I started seeing a psychologist, who helped me so much, however, still didn’t quite hit the spot. I was still searching for something. There was still something missing. That is, till I reached out to two very long-time friends who were part of the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat team in Sydney. I realized then that I hadn’t cried about this for those 29 years till I spoke to those friends, one being a priest.

Some people might think it would be easy to pick up the phone and ask for help, however, it takes a lot of courage to take that first step, to make that phone call. I’m not just talking about myself, but for all women and men that have had an abortion experience in their lives. Really, that applies to anyone who has had a traumatic event in their lives.

After those two phone calls, I agreed to attend that retreat in Sydney on the first weekend of October 2004. That weekend was totally life changing. I met Christ exactly in the place where I was, which was a place of brokenness. Attending one of these retreats, becomes life changing. Again, I don’t only speak for myself here, but for others that have shared their experiences of attending those retreats with me.

Spiritual healing is paramount

Until I went to that retreat, my life felt as if I was in quicksand. For nearly 3 decades, I was sinking in this quicksand and trying everything to get out. Then I attended the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat. The retreat took us deeper and deeper into a state of meditation and prayer. I was able to tap into my 16 year-old self and knowing I was doing this for her.

By doing the work that weekend, I started the journey of coming out of that quicksand. Each step I took, Jesus was there with me, He was there for me every step of the way. This experience was what I was missing and what I longed for. Come the Sunday morning of the retreat, my heart was ready to accept God’s mercy. Having been in that place, I knew that Jesus and my baby had forgiven me. I was able to breathe again……

Something I have learnt since that retreat, is that we need to take care of ourselves and our inner child. This is so important, because otherwise that inner child will never find that healing, he or she deserves. I am no expert; however, I do keep trying…. And that is something we all need to keep working at.

After a few months being back home, I got highly motivated and started the retreat in Tasmania and eventually took it to NZ, Singapore, Penang Malaysia, Perth and Brisbane. I ran this retreat for nearly 14 years before it was time for me to give it up. In that time, my team and I came across many women and men with so many experiences and reasons for them going ahead with the abortion…. Something for all of us to keep in mind, is that not all decisions to have an abortion, come from a place of freedom…

Coercion, lack of choice

For sure, some women choose quite easily to have an abortion, and even use it as a form of contraception; however, it’s not always the case. Some people are put in a situation as I was, and are forced into that procedure. Even some men don’t even get a say, maybe because the woman didn’t tell him she was pregnant until after the abortion had taken place, or she might say, “My Body, My Choice”.

There there was one couple that came to one of our retreats after having three healthy children, they were pregnant with their fourth healthy child, until their doctor convincingly told them, that since the husband had diabetes, he would never live long enough to watch his baby baby grow up.

Can you even begin to imagine what that would have been like for those parents!! How sad and traumatic is that…. As far as I know that man is still alive…. We so often feel that we can’t question our doctor, but we can! Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

A different example of a doctor’s approach, is when our youngest daughter, and her husband were planning to start a family of their own. The time came when she did the home pregnancy test and it showed up ‘positive’. Her next step was to confirm this with a GP. Once the pregnancy was confirmed, the doctor, just came right out and asked her “What do you want to do about it?”

Thankfully there was no question for my daughter or our son in-law. This is something they wanted; they planned for. There was no reason for this GP to question it. Of course, she never went to him again. We now have a gorgeous 11yr old grandson.

People that are sometimes put in a place where they have to choose, would be at their lowest. They would be scared on so many levels and most of them would feel that they have no choice and sadly they go through with the abortion…. Thankfully, we now know there is another choice and that is to go through with the pregnancy…. There is so much help out there now, compared to when I was 16 years old. {See the HLPS website for pregnancy support around Australia.}

Unless you walk a mile

So, while we continue with our day, please remember, not everyone chooses abortion from a place of freedom. We can’t stand in judgement; however, we can continue to hope and pray that they will change their minds. Also, that our governments, State and Federal will actually realise what they have approved and what they are paying for with our tax payers’ money.

We also need to keep advocating for these unborn babies and for the women and men that find themselves in a situation where they have to choose. We also need to keep praying and raising awareness for those who choose abortion freely.

There is a saying I use, and that is: “Unless you have walked a mile in my shoes, you truly don’t know what I have gone through….” Let us be generous with our thoughts while we continue our mission in saving the unborn and saving lives at all stages of life.

{NOTE: although Anne’s abortion took place many years ago, there is plenty of evidence to show that abortion coercion remains common. See recent articles here, here and here.}

by Anne Sherston. Anne is the President of the Human life Protection Society, based in Tasmania. Anne ran Rachel’s Vieyard retreats for 14 years, and joined the HLPS in 2023. HLPS was founded in 1972 and has been a voice for the voiceless ever since, advocating against abortion, euthanasia and disability discrimination.

For information about post-abortion healing, please see the Rachel’s Vineyard website

Tiny but mighty: Tenayah’s story shows the truth of life at 22 weeks

Published on September 24, 2025November 24, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

Tenayah’s tiny body tells us something louder than any argument: that hers is a real life. Let us recognise that every baby in the womb is as real as she is.

When little Tenayah Gimbert arrived into the world, she weighed just 409 grams and was scarcely larger than her mothers hand.¹ Born at 22 weeks and 3 days her odds of survival were slim. Most babies born so early do not make it. Yet thanks to the extraordinary care at Brisbane’s Mater Mother’s Hospital, Tenayah is not only alive, but thriving. At just 128 days old, she has shown no signs of major complications, avoided surgery, and is now tipping the scales at a healthy three kilograms.

Screenshot from Sunrise on 7 Instagram account

Her story is rightly being hailed as a miracle, but is also something more. It is a reminder that even at 22 weeks, what we are speaking about is not a “bundle of cells” or merely a “foetus”. We are speaking about a baby – tiny and fragile but as real and human as any child in a postnatal ward.

The humanity of the unborn

To truly grasp the miracle of Tenayah’s life we must first recognise who she is and what every child in the womb is. She is unmistakably human. At 22 weeks, a baby has a beating heart that has been working since six weeks. Her brain is active, sending signals that control movement, swallowing, and even primitive sleep cycles. She has eyelashes, eyebrows, unique fingerprints, and tiny fingernails. She can move her arms and legs with purpose, responding to touch and sound. Her lungs are forming, her skin is thin but already covering a complete, small body. In fact, her proportions are recognisably those of a newborn – only smaller.²

Parents who see ultrasound scans at this stage often describe the shock of recognition, their child sucks a thumb, hiccups or stretches out a hand. These are not impersonal medical images, they are windows into the life of a son or a daughter who has a purpose in this world.

When Tenayah was born prematurely, no one mistook her for anything other than a baby. Nurses wrapped her in blankets, doctors fought for her survival, and her parents were in awe of how well she was doing. Her size did not diminish her humanity; it only underscored her fragility. She was not a ‘potential person’ suddenly made real by her early birth. She was the same child she had been the day before, only now visible to the world outside the womb.

This is why stories like Tenayah’s matter so deeply. They strip away the euphemisms that cloud our moral vision. Words like “foetus” or “tissue” may be clinically accurate, but they can be used to obscure rather than clarify. The reality is very clear: at 22 weeks we are looking at a baby who is capable of life outside the womb – and whose humanity does not depend on location.

Mater Hospital: saving lives not ending them

In recent months, the Mater Brisbane Hospital was heavily criticised in the media for refusing to provide abortions, accused of putting religion before women.³ Yet this very same hospital is one of only four in Queensland equipped to save babies born on the edge of viability. Without the skill and care of the team at the Mater, Tenayah would almost certainly not be alive.

The contrast could not be clearer. The Mater is condemned for refusing to end lives at the very same time it is demonstrating its extraordinary ability to preserve them.

The law in Queensland

The inconsistencies in abortion policies in Queensland is very evident. Under Queensland law, abortion is lawful on request up to 22 weeks gestation, with no reason required. Beyond that point, abortion is permitted right up until birth, provided two doctors agree it is appropriate.⁴

That means that at the age Tenayah is being celebrated as a miracle of modern medicine, other babies at the same stage of development can legally be aborted, and if before 22 weeks, on request with no reason required. It is difficult to reconcile this contradiction: in one hospital ward, a 22 week old baby is being fought for with every resource available, while in another, a 22 week old baby is being aborted.

Survival rates for very premature babies

Often at 22 weeks we would be told the chances of survival are very slim. But Tenayah’s life shows that behind every number is a child worth fighting for.

In Australia and New Zealand, five in ten babies admitted to the NICU at 23 weeks survive. This jumps up to seven in ten babies who survive at 24 weeks.⁵

These aren’t just statistics. They are children, thousands of them across the world, who now grow up to attend school, play and live full lives because someone believed they were worth saving.

And so the question becomes unavoidable. If five in ten babies born at 23 weeks gestation given care in Australia survive, how can we possibly turn around and say that babies of the same age in the womb are disposable?

Medicine is racing ahead, stretching the margins of viability further back every year. Yet our laws disregard that completely, allowing Queenslanders to kill unborn babies at any stage. It is in some ways a cruel irony that we can cheer on the survival of a 22 week old baby in one room while providing for the destruction of a life in another.

A hopeful ending

Tenayah’s story is one of courage – her parents’, her doctors’ and her own. But it is also a challenge to us as a society, it shows how real life is at 22 weeks. It is life that we must fight to protect at every stage.

As we celebrate her survival, let us recognise that every baby in the womb is as real as she is. They all deserve the chance to live, whether born early in the delivery room or still growing in the safety of a mothers womb.

Tenayah’s tiny body tells us something louder than any argument – that this is life we are talking about. Real human life. Life that is so worth protecting.

by Hannah Newton. This article first appeared at Cherish Life and is republished here with permission. Cherish Life Queensland was founded in 1970 (as Right to Life Queensland), to advocate for the right to life from conception until natural death and remains one of the largest pro-life organisations in Australia.

Jackie Sinnerton, ‘Tenayah Gimbert: The premature baby defying the odds’. Courier Mail. https://www.couriermail.com.au/health/family-health/pregnancy/tenayah-gimbert-the-premature-baby-defying-the-odds/news-story/f27f42789309f2edd1a9215070bf9d96?campaignType=external&campaignChannel=syndication&campaignName=ncacont&campaignContent&campaignSource=the_courier_mail&campaignPlacement=edm&net_sub_id=284386009&type=free_text_block&position=1 Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
Cleveland Clinic, ‘Fetal Development’. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/7247-fetal-development-stages-of-growth Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
Emma Pollard, [23 July 2025] ABC News, ‘Mater Hospital’s religious abortion ban left couple feeling ‘abandoned’. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-23/mater-hospital-religious-abortion-ban-couple-feeling-abandoned/105532550 Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
Queensland Government, ‘Termination of Pregnancy’. https://www.qld.gov.au/health/children/pregnancy/termination-of-pregnancy Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎
Queensland Health Parent Information, Queensland Clinical Guidelines. Babies Born very early. https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/1007935/c-xtreme-preterm.pdf Accessed 11 September 2025. ↩︎

IVF: a defective product without a warranty

Published on September 10, 2025September 10, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

by Kathy Clubb

Although many have woken up to the immoral nature of IVF and to its inherent risks, low effectiveness rate and exorbitant cost, some conservatives unfortunately still believe it is a feasible solution for couples suffering from infertility.

Yet, only a little research is required to discover that, even if the procedure were risk-free and morally acceptable, it would remain problematic due to the amount of human error involved. A plethora of oversights are currently plaguing the industry, placing parents in unenviable situations and making IVF a highly defective product.

Embryo mix ups at the Queensland Fertility Group

The case of a mix-up by Australia’s Queensland Fertility Group exemplifies the problem of IVF’s inherently inadequate safeguards. A white couple who requested sperm from a donor in the U.S. made their selection based on the features of the future male parent: blond hair and blue eyes. It wasn’t until the baby was born that its parents realised it was of an entirely different ethnicity from theirs: the baby is part African-American.

A recent news report on the incident, by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), reveals that the mother involved wrote in an online parents forum: “I love my beautiful baby more than life itself [but] has anyone ever found out their IVF baby wasn’t theirs? Has anyone had a baby that looked like it came from [a] different ethnicity?”

The incident happened over a decade ago, but it was only recently made public as the IVF-provider and its Australian parent company, Virtus Health, ensured the scandal was kept quiet for as long as possible: the parents were made to sign a non-disclosure agreement in return for a settlement, and the mix-up was not even reported to the company’s shareholders.

Additionally, an ABC investigation revealed a significant conflict of interest existing between the Queensland Fertility Group and the industry regulator, RTAC (the Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee). At the time of the incident, when RTAC claimed to have no knowledge of the mix-up, its chair was the scientific director of the Queensland Fertility Group. It is beyond belief that a senior employee of the fertility-provider would have no knowledge of such a devastating mix-up; yet he told the ABC that he had “no memory” of the incident.

It appears that Queensland IVF didn’t learn from its mistakes as other mix-ups have been recently reported. Two lesbians who thought their three IVF children were related were shocked to discover that one of their boys was not related to the other two. The anomaly was revealed after genetic testing of the children was conducted for unrelated reasons. The two women are also incensed that their children are suffering from health problems, including autism, and blame Queensland IVF for failing to properly screen the donor sperm. Unfortunately, had they done their homework, the two women would have known that IVF babies are more prone to developing a number of health problems over naturally-conceived children.

Multiple errors at Monash IVF

The mistakes being made at Queensland IVF are not limited to their company alone. Melbourne-based Monash IVF has this year been forced to apologise for embryo mix-ups on two different occasions. The first incident was devastating and traumatic. A Brisbane woman found that she had given birth to a stranger’s baby after a mix-up at the IVF laboratory. A lawyer specialising in “family creation” (donor conception and surrogacy) said that while this mistake was the first of its kind to happen in Australia, it was not unheard of in other parts of the world.

The second incident occurred on June 5 at its laboratories in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. This involved the transplant of a patient’s embryo rather than the one she had requested: the embryo belonging to her partner. Consider the ramifications of this scenario: two lesbians each have at least one embryo, and see their potential family as a sort of mix-and-match affair!

An advocate for IVF patients, Lucy Lines, said that this second incident “rocked the industry to its core”, noting that more regulation is necessary as there is no legal requirement for embryologists to be registered with a central body. But is lack of oversight the fundamental problem? Is more regulation the answer to this morally problematic industry?

Embryo experimentation

Both of these incidents follow another controversy at Monash IVF, in which it was accused of using inaccurate genetic testing which led to the destruction of potentially viable embryos. More than 700 patients joined a class action lawsuit accusing Monash of secretly using embryos they had asked to be discarded. The parents’ decision to have the embryos destroyed was on the basis of the flawed testing which returned false positives for abnormalities. Monash subsequently used those unwanted embryos for scientific experimentation.

Repromed, a related Monash IVF company, was also accused of falsifying the results of a clinical trial, forging patient signatures on consent forms, and destroying documents to hide evidence of the illegal embryo experiments. Monash didn’t admit liability, but settled the class action out of court for $56 million.

IVF industry smear campaign

The entire reproductive health industry should be chastened by the many examples of malpractice that are occurring with alarming regularity; yet rather than question its own morality, it has taken to discrediting alternatives to IVF. A natural approach to fertility, known as Restorative Reproductive Medicine, or RRP, is the latest casualty in the IVF industry’s campaign to establish itself as the only solution to the problem of infertility.

RRM is superior to IVF for a number of reasons, including its more wholistic approach to human life, its moral procedures and its higher success rate. Additionally, children conceived using RRP techniques are without the health risks so prevalent among children born using IVF.

The National Catholic Bioethics Center in America approves of RRP, describing its goal as the treatment of “the root causes of dysfunctions that make it difficult or impossible for couples to conceive and bring to birth children”. RRP is also recommended by the Washington-based think-tank, the Heritage Foundation, which states,

“RRM succeeds even after IVF has failed, at a fraction of the cost, especially across multiple pregnancies. One study published in 2024 found that 40% of couples previously diagnosed with infertility conceived naturally after undergoing RRM-based treatments compared with a 24% success rate with IVF. Another 2018 study found that 32.1% of women who had an average of two failed IVF cycles conceived naturally following targeted medical interventions with RRM.”

Yet its success has made RRM a target by the IVF behemoth, which regards it as “an approach long confined to the medical fringe”.

Conclusion

It must be restated that even if IVF could be provided without numerous opportunities for human error to derail its effectiveness, it would remain immoral. IVF kills more babies than abortion and can lead to harmful results such as huge numbers of donor-conceived children being related.

Society’s reliance on IVF is predicated on the idea that anyone — in any kind of relationship or none — is entitled to a child if he or she wants one. It is this philosophy that has given rise to abortion and surrogacy, as well as to IVF. As American author John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, has warned,

“The reproductive marketplace is built on twin illusions of consumerism and control. In this world, the almighty ‘I’ should have whatever he or she wants. Those who want sex without children should not be ‘punished’ with a kid. Those who want a child without the trouble of giving birth can rent an incubator for their little accessories. Those who’ve chosen an inherently sterile union can insist, not only that they should be able to have kids, but that others should pay for it. Any future technologies will be utilised accordingly.”

A return to the traditional view of marriage and family is the only solution to the heart-breaking problem of children being perceived as commodities. Until that happens, IVF will remain a defective product sold with no guarantee of satisfaction.

About the author
Kathy Clubb is an Australian mother and grandmother and has home-educated her children for the best part of 30 years. She has undertaken official pro-life work for 10 years, first in Tasmania, and then in Victoria. 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 LifeSiteNews, Online Opinion, Family Life International, The Remnant Newspaper, Caldron Pool and Fidelity magazine.

Sex-selective abortion means unborn girls are missing

Published on September 5, 2025September 6, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

Sex-selective abortion is legal in Queensland and other Australian states, particularly among immigrants from India, China and Vietnam. Yet, feminists and other pro-choice activists are silent about this lethal form of discrimination.

By Hannah Newton, Cherish Life Queensland

Sex-selective abortion, that is the practice of ending the life of an unborn child based on that child’s sex, is often thought of as a distant problem confined to other parts of the world like Asia. However, new research has revealed that this lethal form of discrimination is not only happening in Australia, it is also likely happening right here in Queensland. Devastatingly, there is currently nothing we are doing to stop it.

Newly released study

A groundbreaking peer-reviewed study published in PLOS Global Health analysed over 2.1 million births in Western Australia and New South Wales between 1994 and 2015.¹ The authors found consistent, statistically significant patterns of male-based sex ratios at birth among certain population groups, particularly at the second or third pregnancy following one or more daughters.

In natural conditions, the sex ratio at birth (otherwise known as the SRB) is about 105 boys for every 100 girls. However, this study showed that the SRB exceeded expectations for children born to Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese mothers. For mothers from China, the SRB was 1.09 at second birth and markedly higher (1.34) at the third birth when the first two were female.² This pattern was also observed for mothers from India. Indian and Chinese mothers had much higher induced abortion rates in early pregnancy than their Australian counterparts, which also coincided with the introduction of non-invasive prenatal testing. The authors concluded that this provided observational evidence that linked the male-biased SRB with prenatal sex determination followed by selective female-biased abortion.³

So what is non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT)? This is a semi-recently introduced blood test that can reveal the sex of a baby as early as 10 weeks gestation.⁴ This timeline also conveniently falls well within the legal window for abortion-on-request in most Australian Jurisdictions. What this means is that parents can find out the sex of a baby early enough to legally terminate the pregnancy if they are disappointed.

While this data came from WA and NSW, the same cultural and legal conditions exist in Queensland, meaning that there is every reason to believe that similar sex-selection practices are occurring here.

Permissive abortion laws fuel the problem

Since the passing of the Termination of Pregnancy Act 2018 (Qld), abortion in Queensland is legal for any reason up to 22 weeks gestation.⁵ Beyond 22 weeks, it can still be performed with the agreement of two doctors.

There is:

No requirement to give a reason for seeking an abortion
No restriction on terminating based on the sex of the baby
No delay in disclosing the baby’s sex via NIPT
No data collection or monitoring of why abortions are performed in Queensland

This legal environment effectively created the perfect storm for sex-selective abortions to occur undetected and unchallenged. Parents can learn the sex of their unborn child early, and if they are hoping for a boy but find out it is a girl, they can legally and quietly abort the baby. We must acknowledge this for what it is, gender discrimination.

Let’s be clear: this is gender-based discrimination

Sex selective abortion is not a fringe concern. It is a form of gender-based violence that targets girls at their most vulnerable stage: in the womb. It says to girls, before they take their first breath, that they are not wanted or valued.

This practice has contributed to millions of “missing girls” globally, especially in China, where widespread sex-selection has created dangerous demographic imbalances and human rights crises.⁶ The United Nations has even condemned sex-selective abortion as a violation of women’s rights.⁷ However, in Australia we are turning a blind eye.

We cannot claim to uphold gender equality while permitting a legal system that allows girls to be aborted for simply being girls.

A glaring double standard: IVF vs abortion

Here’s the irony: in Australia, it is illegal to select the sex of a baby through IVF unless there is a medical reason (such as avoiding a sex-linked genetic disorder).

The National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines, which govern reproductive technology, explicitly prohibit non-medical sex-selection. The reasoning is sound: allowing parents to choose the sex of their child for personal or cultural reasons would entrench gender bias and commodify children. And yet, while sex-selection through IVF is banned, sex-selection through abortion is entirely legal. This contradiction is staggering.

In one context, the government rightly says: you cannot choose your child’s sex – because girls and boys are of equal value. But in another says: you can end the life of your unborn baby if the child is not the sex you want – and we won’t ask why.

This is not just a loophole, it’s a fundamental failure of consistency and principle and it is costing baby girls their lives. How can we ban sex-selection in the lab while turning a blind eye to it in the womb?

The lies used to justify it

Pro-abortion advocates often justify unrestricted abortion laws by invoking tragic scenarios – claiming that if abortion were restricted in any way, women would be denied care for miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. This is false.

In Queensland:

Miscarriage care is completely legal and is routinely provided
There is no law that prohibits health professionals from offering and administering life-saving treatment.

This argument is a scare tactic, used to distract from the fact that our current laws allow for abortion purely because the child is the “wrong” sex. This is not about reproductive healthcare, it is about ideological dishonesty and legal cowardice.

So, what needs to be done?

If Queensland is serious about protecting women and girls, we must take urgent steps to end sex-selective abortion. At a minimum the Queensland Government should:

Ban the disclosure of a baby’s sex before 20 weeks unless medically necessary
Prohibit abortion on the grounds of a baby’s sex
Introduce mandatory reporting requirements, including collection of data on reasons for abortion and a baby’s sex at termination
Implement clinical protocols in line with ethical standards that prevent misuse of NIPT for non-medical sex-selection.

Equality must begin in the womb

Sex-selective abortion is happening in Australia. It is enabled by silence, fuelled by ideology, and ignored by the very laws that claim to protect women. If we care about gender equality, we cannot look away.

Every unborn girl deserves the same right to life and dignity as a boy. Equality must begin in the womb. It’s time Queensland faced the truth – and acted to protect all of our babies.

By Hannah Newton. Republished from Cherish Life with permission. Cherish Life Queensland was founded in 1970 (as Right to Life Queensland), to advocate for the right to life from conception until natural death and remains one of the largest pro-life organisations in Australia.

Gebremedhin AT, et al. (2025) Indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices to the imbalanced sex ratio at birth in Australian migrant populations. PLOS Glob Public Health 5(5): e0004672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004672 Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Gebremedhin AT, et al. (2025) Indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices to the imbalanced sex ratio at birth in Australian migrant populations. PLOS Glob Public Health 5(5): e0004672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004672 Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Gebremedhin AT, et al. (2025) Indirect evidence of sex-selective abortion practices to the imbalanced sex ratio at birth in Australian migrant populations. PLOS Glob Public Health 5(5): e0004672. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004672 Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT), Pregnancy birth & baby https://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/non-invasive-prenatal-testing-nipt#:~:text=Non%2Dinvasive%20prenatal%20testing%20(NIPT)%20is%20one%20way%20you,genetic%20conditions%20in%20your%20baby. Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Termination of Pregnancy, Queensland Government. https://www.qld.gov.au/health/children/pregnancy/termination-of-pregnancy Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Sex-selective abortions over the past four decades in China. (2025). Population Health Metrics, 23(6). https://pophealthmetrics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12963-025-00368-y Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎
Joint Statement by OHCHR, UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women and WHO. “Son preference” must end. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2011/06/joint-statement-ohchr-unfpa-unicef-un-women-and-who?utm_source=chatgpt.com Accessed 7 August 2025. ↩︎

Some people are still choosing to have a large family

The larger the family, the greater the gift

Published on August 29, 2025August 30, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

There are a number of factors which have led to the decline in family size, yet there are still those who understand that becoming a parent has a personal benefit, as well as a societal one.

The U.S. fertility rate dropped to an all-time low in 2024, according to recent CDC data. Our country’s fertility rate now stands at fewer than 1.6 births per woman, well below the 2.1 children per woman needed to achieve population replacement. Effectively, this means that we’re unable to replace – let alone grow – our population through reproduction. Once the trend toward population shrinkage begins, it’s difficult to reverse.

The problem is global. Twenty-three nations are set to see their populations halve by 2100, according to the BBC. Population collapse could fundamentally reshape societies as they grapple with the impacts on economics, military readiness, healthcare, and culture. Human beings remain the most important resource for any civilization – and we’re on track to run out of them.

So why is the global population, by and large, not replacing itself? A lot of factors contribute to this trend, and, at the end of the day, it remains somewhat mysterious. But we can point to some concrete reasons, outlined in Ross Douthat’s book, “The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success.”

Douthat first notes the major economic and cultural shift from agrarian to industrial and urban living. This change from farm to factory to firm “made children less valuable as extra household laborers and made an intense educational investment in each child make far more economic sense – which in turn raised the costs of childrearing for the ambitious and successful.”

In the past, farms – and to some extent, factories – needed large numbers of laborers, who could be relatively uneducated, incentivizing farming families to have more kids. Today, our economy prizes automation and AI, with just a limited number of tech whizzes needed to keep the whole thing running.

The introduction of contraceptives is another factor Douthat raises. These made it possible for people to separate sexual activity from its natural procreative end, and that trend was only exacerbated by the sexual revolution of the 1960s in which sexuality was reframed as purely the pursuit of pleasure, rather than a life-giving act meant to take place within matrimony.

Feminism also urged women out of the home and away from childrearing, while the rise in divorce undercut the longevity of marriages, discouraging couples’ attempts to build large, stable families.

Additionally, the secularization of society removed religious support and motivation for extending the gift of life, while an increasingly comfortable and consumerist society encouraged self-centeredness and physical enjoyment over self-sacrifice. Further, since the sexual revolution, men and women struggle more to establish relationships with each other in the first place, even though most people still say they want relationships, marriage, and children, according to Douthat.

By some accounts, the declining birthrate is symptomatic of societal anxiety over finances. “People are marrying later and also worried about their ability to have the money, health insurance and other resources needed to raise children in a stable environment,” CBS reports. Yet financial constraints to childrearing seem more of a cultural perception problem than actual poverty, given that generations of our forebears successfully raised larger families on less wealth.

According to a Pew survey from 2024, finances aren’t the main reason people are avoiding procreation. For adults aged 18-49, the most common reason given is “I just don’t want to.” This is often because they want to focus on other things, like hobbies, interests, and careers. Interestingly, the third most common reason provided was “concerns about the state of the world.”

These responses suggest that the biggest determining factor in the birth dearth has to do with societal attitudes towards what is most important in life, and whether or not the world is headed in a positive direction. The ideologies most young Americans are formed in focus on personal fulfillment and career achievement over the sacrifice entailed in giving back to society (and one’s own offspring) through childrearing.

Further, since the breakdown of traditional ideas about religion and truth, the world has suffered from a crisis of meaning, epitomized by nihilist philosophers such as Nietzsche. Tragically, mainstream thought has largely turned away from belief in objective truth, and with it, the belief that life has inherent meaning and value.

Ultimately, our failure to reproduce stands as a sign of a profound cultural pessimism, a loss of faith in the value of life itself. Anyone who truly understands the value of life longs to share it through children. Anyone who doesn’t will see little point in reproducing.

Fortunately, some young people are rejecting this anti-life zeitgeist. In certain communities – especially devout religious ones – couples are choosing to have large families, finding greater joy and fulfillment in the process than any hobby or career could provide. [NOTE: In Hungary, the Orban government’s pro-natalist policies have had some measure of success in boosting the birth-rate. This is something that should be investigated by Western policy-makers. Read more here– Ed.]

Each new life is like the creation of a whole new world. With each child, parents give someone else the gift of experiencing the world and all that life has to offer. What could be more meaningful than that? It is in the act of giving that we also receive the most. The more we give, the more we are ourselves fulfilled – and there’s no greater gift to give than life. Many young parents today are realizing that parenthood is not only a boon to their children and society, but also a blessing to themselves. And the larger the family, the more abundant the gift.

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

Phyllis Schlafly – friend and role model of Babette Francis

Published on August 15, 2025August 15, 2025 by EF TeamLeave a comment

John Morrissey gives a brief overview of the friendship between American conservative powerhouse, Phyllis Schlafly and Babette Francis, founder of Endeavour Forum.

Only months before Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016, there occurred the death at the age of 92 of a hero of US Christian conservatives, Phyllis Schlafly, who gave him her blessing in his run for the presidency. This Harvard graduate and mother of six left behind her 50 years of activism on behalf of the nation itself, traditional family interests and values, and the pro-life movement in the US and abroad. Her first publication in 1964, A Choice Not an Echo, was a best seller, calling on the Republican Party to distinguish itself from the drift to the progressive Left in the Democratic Party’s reorientation away from traditional American values.

Some Australian viewers might have been aware of Phyllis Schlafly when her character was played by Cate Blanchett in the TV mini-series “Mrs America” on Fox Showcase in 2020. The series focused on her leading the opposition of Christian conservative women to defeat the 1970s feminist campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US Constitution. In no way related to the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, ERA professed to explicitly prohibit sex discrimination, but it was a charter for the radical feminist agenda.

Phyllis is shown opposed to a line-up of the famed feminists of the time, including Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm. The images presented of twinset-and-pearls ladies with neat coiffures lobbying legislators with packages of homemade banana-bread while urging them to reject the amendment were remarkably true to life. In contrast and despite the very attractive portrayal of Steinem by Rose Byrne, the hippy appearance and wrangling among these radical feminists made them appear more like a “coven of witches”, as one writer to the Melbourne Age Green Guide likened them. Much of the credit must go to Cate Blanchett’s superb performance in a production which was rated in the top ten of TV series that year and won numerous nominations and awards.

As Phyllis was taking out a law degree and building her profile with numerous media interviews and debates – she conceded that women could “have it all”, but not at the same time – she made her mark on the Republican Party and its platform. Written in her final year, How the Republican Party Became Pro-Life (2016) tells the story of how she and her Eagle Forum followers, now drawn from many states, devised strategies to gain control of the party platform in the latter 1970s, in the wake of Roe Vs Wade. At the Republican Convention in Missouri in 1976 her motion to “protest the Supreme Court’s intrusion into the family structure” and “to seek enactment of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children” was approved. She was also involved in Helm’s amendment to oppose accommodation and detente with the USSR, her original interest in politics having been in defence strategy.

It is difficult to pinpoint when contact was first made, but the first mention of Phyllis in the “Women Who Want to be Women” (forerunner of Endeavour Forum) newsletter was in September 1980 when Babette met the author of The Power of the Positive Woman in Chicago. By this time Babette was a regular attendee of UN and other conferences overseas, where she delivered many hard-hitting papers on her key topics of the interests of women and families. The November 1980 issue of the newsletter celebrated the successful election of Ronald Reagan as President of the US and noted that a “platform that is solidly pro-life and opposed to the feminist ERA can WIN”. Babette also paid tribute to the “energetic” Baptists of Georgia, who showed that abortion is not just a “Catholic issue”. When The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority, a biography of Phyllis by Carol Fesenthal, was boycotted by many US bookshops and libraries, the newsletter fumed at the “censors and book-burners” responsible.

At the invitation of Women Who Want to be Women (WWWW), in 1983 Phyllis toured the eastern states of Australia, speaking against a Sex Discrimination bill, warning of unintended consequences for women, just as she had warned concerning the ERA proposal in the US. She was described in the Catholic press as “a charmingly feminine lady …. very youthful looking, always perfectly disciplined, always perfectly groomed in appearance”. Speaking at Monash University, she never lost her cool when heckled after affirming that sex outside the marriage bond was sinful. She was guest speaker at WWWW’s first annual convention, where she delivered a paper with the title “Is the Family an Endangered Species?” on problems faced in the US which were also evident in Australia. In the February 1985 newsletter it was reported that Eagle Forum members rejoiced in the re-election of Ronald Reagan, “a vindication of the moral and patriotic values dear to the hearts of Americans”, which reflected the deepening ties. In1994, Phyllis’ sister-in-law, Eleanor Schlafly, visited Australia on a speaking tour organized by Babette. Moreover, at its annual celebrations Endeavour Forum has long awarded a Phyllis Schlafly Eagles certificate to a chosen “Homemaker of the Year”, invariably a lady active in the local pro-life movement.

Phyllis Schlafly went on to build a formidable organization with branches across the US, especially in the South and the Mid-West. As did Babette, she consistently argued that equality of the sexes does not mean reducing the innate differences between them to reproduction and social conditioning. She is credited with having much to do with the rise of the Moral Majority movement which shifted the shape of the US political landscape.

Today the Phyllis Schlafly Eagle Forum maintains a large membership who play an important role in the Republican Party. Its HQ is an impressive building in St Louis Missouri and the Schlafly family still play a part in its work. The successor to Phyllis was Ed Martin, who in 2017 also visited Australia for a speaking tour organized by Babette. He is now an important member of Donald Trump’s team, having already filled in as D.A. for Washington D.C. and at present is Pardons Attorney, responsible for freeing US citizens unjustly imprisoned by the Biden administration.

In 2018 I was invited to attend with Babette a grand Eagle Forum conference in St Louis. There 600 members thronged a Marriott hotel over a long weekend to be addressed by speakers who included members of the Trump administration, delegates from branches across the US, persons of special interest and guests like Babette and me. When she entered the dining room on the first evening she was welcomed as a VIP and invited to the top table. Before meals we said grace, recited a loyal pledge to the Constitution and sang the National Anthem. It was truly inspiring. Donald and Melania Trump were there in spirit, or rather as large cardboard cutouts on stage. It was a truly inspiring example of patriotism which shames us here in Australia.

by John Morrissey

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