Tag: Motherhood

Purcell

Georgie Purcell: a next-generation abortion advocate

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

Victorian MP, Georgie Purcell, has understandably drawn criticism from the public for including a promotion of abortion during her pregnancy announcement. She recently made the announcement via a lengthy post on the social media platform, Instagram. Her prominence as a politician as well as her large social media following mean she is well-placed to push her pro-choice agenda onto impressionable Australians. Ms. Purcell represents a new wave of abortion advocates who make no attempt to hide their discrimination against the unborn or against the pro-life community.

A former stripper and topless waitress, Georgie Purcell is no stranger to controversy, initially positioning herself as an advocate for sex workers and as a role model for young Australian women. After joining the Animal Justice Party and being elected to the Victorian parliament, Ms. Purcell drew on her own abortion experience to lobby for increased abortion access for all Victorian women, especially in rural areas.

A Political Pregnancy Announcement

When Ms. Purcell recently made public her latest pregnancy, initially announcing it to her 212,000 Instagram followers, it included the following reference to her abortions:

“If you’ve followed my work for a while, you’ll know that this isn’t my first pregnancy. But it’s the first I’ve chosen to continue. As I prepare for motherhood (beyond cats, dogs, horses and sheep) I carry with me the stories of my abortions. They are not only part of my advocacy as a politician, but also part of who I am. I am more grateful than ever before that I have had access to choice so that I could do this on my own terms and timeline, and will always fight for everybody to have the same.”

Rather than expressing regret for aborting her first two children, Ms. Purcell seemed to relish the fact that she possessed the power to have them killed.

Elsewhere on the social media account, Ms. Purcell unironically states that Gaza is “currently the most unsafe place in the world for a child”. Without playing down the humanitarian crisis occurring in Gaza. it must be said that the most unsafe place for a child these days is in its mother’s womb. This fact seems lost on Ms. Purcell even though her own experience provides ample evidence.

Purcell
From Georgie Purcells’ Instagram account
Purcell

Public Backlash

Understandably, members of the pro-life community responded to Ms. Purcell’s post by pointing out the inconsistency of joyfully welcoming some children while unashamedly disposing of others. This backlash was met with an article on the feminist website, Women’s Agenda, in which Ms. Purcell attempted to justify her position.

The article, entitled, Abortion will always be part of my journey, reiterated the content of her social media post and included her latest statements from the Victorian Parliament. Ms. Purcell told Parliament that her pregnancy “has only solidified [her] belief in reproductive choice” and went on to explain her gratitude for “access to options”. She decried the “anti-choice”, “anti-women activists” who criticised her promotion of abortion, saying that their comments renewed her passion for advocating for “reproductive rights”.

Yet, the backlash wasn’t only from the pro-life quarter: others, perhaps more closely aligned ideologically with the Animal Justice Party, have also criticised Ms. Purcell’s cavalier attitude to abortion. Ms. Purcell herself notes that many who believe in a woman’s “right to choose” one abortion may balk at the thought of two, considering that to be irresponsible.

Blaming Pro-Lifers

Ms. Purcell’s new-wave abortion advocacy includes laying the blame for any abortion-related inconvenience at the feet of the pro-life community. Despite being criticised by people who identify as pro-choice, Ms. Purcell prefers to aim her barbs at pro-lifers.

When speaking about the so-called “Safe Access” zones that operate in Victoria. Ms. Purcell openly states that her first abortion took place before the 150m exclusion-zones were introduced, and claims to have been “severely harassed” by pro-lifers as she entered the abortion business. Although that ‘harassment” allegedly consisted of being told she was “killing her baby”, was that not precisely the purpose of her visit? Is stating a fact synonymous with harassment?

No-one who is about to commit a grave error likes to be reminded of the fact, and experience shows that being told that one is about to kill one’s own baby has, in some cases at least, led mothers to re-evaluate their decision to abort their children. Unfortunately for Georgie Purcell’s first two children, that was not the case in her situation. Rather, she went ahead with her abortions, preferring to paint pro-lifers as the villains.

In an article she wrote in 2022, Ms. Purcell continued the blame-game, going so far as to accuse pro-lifers of forcing regional GP’s not to prescribe the abortion pills. She wrote that because there are fewer GP’s in the country they are “more vulnerable to being targeted by anti-choice activists.”

For someone who is so concerned about “choice”, Ms. Purcell seems reluctant to admit that some doctors live out their choice not to be a party to abortion. It is also doubtful that any doctor would appreciate being characterised as a weak, malleable personality who capitulates his or her pro-choice principles in the face of pro-life opposition.

Pro-life Hospitals Deny Care?

The discrimination by Ms. Purcell against conscientious objectors to abortion continues on the issue of abortion provision in hospitals. Like other abortion zealots, Ms. Purcell repeats the narrative that some hospitals, in refusing to perform abortions, are thereby denying women ‘lifesaving” care. She cites her own experience of needing a hormonal birth control device removed as it has dislodged and was in danger of perforating her uterus. She claims this led her to seek help at a non-religious hospital because “all over Victoria, there are hospitals conscientiously objecting to all reproductive healthcare services…”

It is difficult to believe that any hospital – even a Catholic one – would refuse to remove an IUD that threatened to perforate a woman’s uterus. Additionally, Ms. Purcell does not make it clear if she was actually turned away from a private hospital or whether she merely assumed she would not be helped. In any case, there is certainly no shortage of facilities where this kind of removal can be done and it seems polemical to suggest that religious hospitals should be accused of putting women at risk.

Dehumanisation is complete

It is Ms. Purcell’s references to animals that most blatantly indicate the direction in which abortion advocacy is now heading. By claiming that caring for cats, dogs and so on is no different from caring for children, the dehumanisation of the unborn is complete. In fact, the new narrative is that animals are actually superior to children in the womb.

For example, if an animal is too sick to continue treatment or is deemed to be unwanted, it is gently put to sleep, usually caressed lovingly in the arms of its owners or animal shelter staff as it passes away. Such an animal is assisted by caring, sympathetic veterinarians who do their utmost to provide a quiet atmosphere for the animal’s last moments.

Contrast this with the intentional death of a child in utero: it is either unceremoniously dismembered without sedation, as is the case with a first trimester surgical abortion, or it is starved via chemicals then violently expelled into a toilet. A baby in this situation is not held nor comforted and dies alone, surrounded by fear, rejection and cold calculation.

When it comes to the decision itself, of having an animal put down, this is usually the result of weeks or even months of consideration by a pet’s owner. Owners are usually grieved at the thought of having to make such a difficult choice. By contrast, an abortion, which we are told is “never an easy decision” is in reality often made without much hesitation or even forethought. Indeed, Ms. Purcell admits that as soon as she discovered her unplanned pregnancy at the age of 21, she “knew what she wanted to do.”

She explains, “I got an abortion because I didn’t want to have a child. I think that is important to say, because too often, we defend abortion by using the most extreme examples of why they’re necessary – such as sexual assaults and unviable pregnancies. But when it comes to making the decision to have an abortion, no one needs a justification or an excuse.”

Next-generation abortion zealots like Georgie Purcell are to be greatly pitied, since their lives eventually become one continuous justification of their abortions. They do untold damage to their living children who grow up knowing that they are lucky to be alive, yet are forced into imitating their mothers’ zeal for abortion. We must hope that Ms. Purcell soon realises the grave damage her example is inflicting on impressionable young women and men and that she somehow acknowledges her errors and finds a way to make up for her moral crimes – something that is never out of the scope of God’s mercy.

by Kathy Clubb

late-term abortion

Late-term abortion draws baby bonus from government

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

There is renewed scrutiny of the decades-old practice of the federal government paying mothers who have their babies killed by late-term abortion.

The Albanese government is now paying mothers for killing their healthy babies before they are born. Incredibly, this means that an Australian mother who aborts her baby — after 20 weeks in her pregnancy and up until birth — can choose between a Stillbirth Parenting Payment of $4,255 or a Paid Parental Leave Payment of $20,147!

Not even Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World could have envisaged such a grotesque inversion of meaning. But such is the time in which we now live.

Late-term abortion is an horrific and barbaric practice. Not only that, but it is a pre-mediated act of murder to take the life of another human being. As pro-life lawyer Dr Joanna Howe explains:

Killing a baby after 20 weeks and up until birth entails injecting the baby’s heart with potassium chloride or digoxin and is followed by the early induction of labour of that now stillborn baby.

This is a deliberate and wilful act to kill a healthy baby very late in pregnancy and deliver them stillborn.

In South Australia, 80% of late-term abortions kill healthy babies.

The Corruption of the Baby Bonus

Australia has a very generous policy for families to have a child. But the Albanese government is now extending that financial provision for their murder as well. Indeed, it not only supports but also encourages the termination of pregnancies after twenty weeks. As Dr Howe argues:

The Howard Government’s Baby Bonus was criticised because it incentivised teen pregnancies. This is far, far worse. Instead of receiving a $5,000 cash payment for birthing a baby at full term, the Albanese Government is now incentivising late-term abortion in half the time.

One midwife relays the traumatic situation of assisting a woman to terminate her child, only to be then told that she is looking forward to using the Stillborn Parenting Payment to fund her upcoming trip to Bali.

In the dystopian classic 1984, George Orwell coined the term ‘newspeak’, a fictional language for the totalitarian state of Oceania. By re-defining the meaning of words, the government could exert complete control over its citizens. Hence, the Ministry for Truth was the government agency responsible for propaganda, historical revisionism, and controlling information. Alternatively, the Ministry of Love was responsible for perpetrating violence through fear, torture and brainwashing.

As we can all see now, Orwell was not only a brilliant novelist, but also very prescient in what he perceived would soon occur. But not even he could have envisioned a situation where a “baby bonus” would be paid to a mother for killing her baby or a Paid Parental Leave payment be given after one decided to not actually be a mother. And the fact that the political party responsible for this perversion is called the ‘Labor’ Party just beggars belief.

Appendix: SA Pregnancy Advisory Centre Form

The below form from the Pregnancy Advisory Centre outlined how to claim the maternity payment for “termination of pregnancy at or over 20 weeks gestation”. In 2013, Catholic pro-life advocate Bernard Gaynor published this on his website which was given to him “by a family hurt by abortion”. For more information, see the article, “Is the Australian Government Really Paying Women $4,200 to Abort Their Babies? Here’s the Evidence“.

late-term abortion
SOURCE: Bernard Gaynor’s website

by Mark Powell.

This article first appeared at The Daily Declaration and is reproduced here by permission.

Mark Powell is a passionate advocate for faith, family, freedom and life. He is a gifted communicator and has made various appearances on radio and TV. Mark is unafraid to graciously speak the truth about contentious issues. He contributes to numerous online publications including The Spectator Australia, where his articles often appear in the most popular list.

The Daily Declaration is Australia’s largest Christian news site. They are dedicated to providing a voice for Christian values in the public square. Their vision is to see the revitalisation of our Judeo-Christian values for the common good. 

12 year old consent to abortion

Court rules 12-year-old can consent to an abortion

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

A pre-teen mother has been deemed by the Queensland Supreme court as able to consent to an abortion, after a hospital requested permission to abort her child.

The case was brought by the unnamed hospital under a Queensland law prohibiting a parent from consenting to an abortion on behalf an underage child. This triggered parens patriae jurisdiction, which allows the court to act as a ‘parent of the country’ and assess the child’s ability to consent. The goal of parens patriae legislation is to protect children and those without full mental capacity, ending in a decision which is supposedly in the “best interests” of the child or child-like person.

Staff from the hospital sought orders from the court after they were concerned that the young mother, known by the pseudonym, ‘E’, was not mature enough to consent to the abortion. E was 9 weeks pregnant at the time, and both she and her 13-year-old boyfriend had requested an abortion.

The court was told that E had already tried to commit an abortion using the abortion pill, as she was apparently very fearful of her father discovering the pregnancy. Her plan was to have the baby aborted before any signs of her pregnancy showed.

In her judgement, Justice Catherine Muir wrote that “Historically, children have had no capacity at all to consent or refuse treatment. This was always within their parents’ remit. Now the law recognises that there are certain developmental stages relevant to a young person’s ability to consent to medical care.”

Despite testimonies from a gynaecologist, an obstetrician and a psychologist questioning E’s ability to comprehend what was going to happen to her, the judge deemed that E could, in fact, understand the abortion procedure and its inherent risks. Justice Muir also took the opportunity to repeat the progressive talking point regarding the procedure’s safety, noting that “… the proceduralist assesses those risks as not being significant in this case.”

Justice Muir’s main concern seemed to be that E understand the physical process involved in having her baby terminated. She wrote: “Critically, E was able to explain to me what she understood she was doing by choosing to terminate the baby, and also that there were risks with this procedure, including bleeding, risks for future pregnancy, cramping and infection.”

A closer look at this section of the judgement shows that the medical professions who assessed E twice concluded that her knowledge of an abortion procedure was “rudimentary”, a view they believed to have been “consistent with that of a 12-year-old.” So while E may have understood in basic terms that her baby was going to be killed, it isn’t at all clear that she understood that her child had a heartbeat and brainwaves, that it was almost old enough to suck its own thumb, or that it was fully human.

The girl’s mother was very supportive of the abortion, and requested that her daughter be fitted with a contraceptive implant afterwards. From this we can glean that the young girl has no intention of avoiding, nor will she be encouraged to avoid sexual activity at the conclusion of this sad affair. It also sheds some light on the contrast between the girl’s attitude towards babies and that which is more commonly held by girls of her age that babies are to be protected and cherished. Almost a child herself, it is surprising and sad that E did not empathise with the plight of her baby, despite the difficulties associated with motherhood at such a young age.

In this scenario, we see that those who should be relied on to support a young mother through her crisis pregnancy convinced her to take the route that was simplest for them. Knowing that they would have a significant role to play in helping her through pregnancy or care for a newborn, they steered her towards abortion, out of either a misplaced sense of compassion or out of concern for their own time and energy.

While the medical professionals did raise some concerns in court, they were not against the abortion in principle. Rather, it appears that they desired that the responsibility for making the decision be lifted from their shoulders. This is an example of the danger of the parens patriae doctrine being used by ideologically-driven courts. Just as courts may confuse an abusive household with an impoverished one, so they may use an ostensibly compassionate law to further a pro-abortion agenda.

A testimony given by a midwife seems to have been the only voice of reason in the case. She said “that the girl required assistance to understand some of the questions put to her about the termination,” and thought “she did not demonstrate sufficient insight into the operation’s risks and benefits.” It’s difficult to understand how the opinion of this experienced medical professional was ignored by a judge who gave only a cursory evaluation of E in the courtroom.

It should be noted that Justice Muir had little care for the psychological impact the abortion will have on the young girl. Although it may be years before she comes to terms with her decision, E, like many other mothers, may find that this is a decision she will regret for the rest of her life.

One of the most questionable elements of the case is the rationale for keeping the decision from the girl’s father. Court records state that he wasn’t notified due to an apparent threat of violence. If this claim is true, then we can only wonder why the girl could not be protected from this threat and supported to continue her pregnancy. Surely enough legal protections exist to guarantee the girl’s safety so that she didn’t feel compelled to inflict the ultimate form of violence on her unborn child: killing it in the womb.

This sad case is not the first time that Queensland courts have allowed an abortion to be performed on a 12-year-old. A similar case took place in 2016, when Justice McMeekin gave permission for a young mother with the pseudonym ‘Q’ to have her baby terminated.

Writing about the latter case, the progressive Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) explained the Court’s recourse to parens patriae jurisdiction, again citing the “best interest of the child.”  The HRLC statement then goes on to give the brutally honest caveat: “This does not include the interests of an unborn child.”

by Kathy Clubb

Chemical abortions are not safe

Chemical abortions: not safe for mother or baby

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

Australia has loosened restrictions on chemical abortions yet new data proves they are less safe for mothers than the authorities would have us believe.

The abortion pill has become the preferred method of terminating a pregnancy for most Western women, including in Australia. Legally available since 2006, it now accounts for up to 60% of Australia’s 90,000 abortions.1

This increase has been exacerbated by a loosening of restrictions around who can prescribe the pill. Yet a new study from the US should be raising the alarm among those who believe that medication abortion is a safe option for women.

Chemical abortions in Australia

In Australia, the abortion pill is produced by Marie Stopes International under the name MS-2 Step and was formerly known as RU-486. The new name reflects the two-stage protocol for a chemical abortion: first the drug Mifepristone is consumed to stop progesterone production; this effectively stops the unborn baby from accessing nutrition from its mother. Then 36-48 hours later, the drug Misoprostol is taken to expel the dead child.

If the second pill is not consumed and high doses of progesterone are given to the mother after the first pill, then there is a good chance that the action of the abortion pill can be reversed and the baby saved.

Doctors previously required special certification in order to prescribe MS-2 Step, but since August 2023, the Therapeutic Goods Act has allowed any GP to do so. Additionally, nurses, midwives and other medical professionals are now legally able to prescribe the abortion pills, as explained in our previous article.

New South Wales’ new bill

The state which most recently jumped on the abortion access bandwagon is New South Wales.  The bill,  put forward by Greens MP Amanda Cohn, brought NSW into line with the other states except Tasmania, enabling chemical abortions to be prescribed by endorsed midwives and nurse-practitioners.

Major amendments saw the most controversial sections of the bill scrapped, including a section that would force health professionals who had a conscientious objection to abortion to facilitate the termination of pregnancies and another that would have forced pro-life doctors to refer women for abortions.

There were concerns that parts of the bill could have led to the closure of Christian and Catholic hospitals for refusing to perform abortion procedures. Even though the bill’s authors said it referred to public institutions and contained no mechanism to enforce compliance, the possibility for amendments to be made in the future caused a huge backlash.

One upside to the new law is that the section related to data collection was expanded – something sorely needed in all those Australian states which currently do not collect data, ie all states and territories other than South Australia and Western Australia.

A timely new ctudy

Yet a new study, released by the American Ethics and Public Policy Centre (EPPC) in May of this year, could throw a spanner in the works of this expanded access to the abortion pill. The study, the largest of its kind, analysed the insurance claims related to more than 800,000 mifepristone abortions over a period of six years.

The results were startling, with almost 11% of women reporting a serious adverse event within 45 days of their abortion. The study did not include ‘mild’ or ‘moderate’ adverse events in its conclusions; mental health consequences were included in the category ‘other abortion-specific complaints.’

Serious adverse events included: repeat surgical terminations due to an incomplete abortion; haemorrhage, including some requiring a blood transfusion; sepsis and ectopic pregnancy. A staggering 5% of women required a visit to a hospital emergency department. The findings call into question the existing FDA statistics of adverse events after Mifepristone occurring only ‘0.5%’ of the time.

Chemical abortions adverse events statistics

SOURCE: Ethics and Public Policy Centre

The EPPC is calling for a thorough investigation of the drug by the FDA, which is still using data from its original decade-old studies, and in recent days, the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration has committed to conducting a review of Mifepristone. However, without providing any details or an official statement from the FDA, a review remains to be seen.

Those studies relied on a relatively small number of cases, whereas the EPPC study uses data from 28 times as many abortions. Additionally, the EPPC is calling for the FDA to return to its original, more stringent guidelines for dispensing Mifepristone, such as physician-only prescription in a clinical setting with ready access to high-level medical intervention, if required.

Those guidelines may be contrasted with the current ones, in place since 2023, which mean that women can access a mifepristone abortion after only one telehealth consultation with any approved healthcare provider – who doesn’t have to be a physician. Additionally, healthcare providers have no obligation to report an adverse event unless the patient dies. In the US, the drug is also available by mail-order pharmacy for those living in states which have banned abortion.

Ineffectiveness of chemical abortions

Included among the serious adverse reactions to the abortion pill is a high failure rate. The American study found that more than 5% of chemical abortions fail – somewhat higher than the rate currently quoted by the abortion industry of around 3-4%.

The EPPC study found that “According to the insurance data, 5.26 percent of women undergo a second abortion attempt within 45 days of the first, indicating that the first mifepristone abortion attempt failed.” Not only that, it was also reported that 1.58 percent of mothers were given a second dose of misoprostol but not a second dose of mifepristone, suggesting that the baby was killed by the first drug but not completely expelled from the mother’s body.

The extra dose of misoprostol therefore increases the likelihood of adverse reactions specific to that drug, including effects such as shivering, chills, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, hyperthermia, nausea, vomiting, flatulence, constipation, dyspepsia, headache, breakthrough bleeding, menstrual irregularities, syncope (fainting), lethargy, weakness, and vertigo. 

By including the number of repeat abortions in their data, the EPPC concluded that a massive “13.51 percent of women—roughly one in seven—experience at least one serious adverse event or repeated abortion attempt within 45 days of first attempting a mifepristone abortion.“

Chemical abortions effectiveness statistics

SOURCE: Ethics and Public Policy Centre

Incomplete data

A second recent study, this time from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, looked at over 28,000 emergency room visits that followed a chemical abortion. The ER visits took place within 30 days of the abortion and it was found that during the 5-year study period, 84% of the admissions were wrongly classified as being ‘miscarriages’ rather than ‘adverse abortion events.’ Additionally, around half of the miscoded cases were high-level medical emergencies.

These findings underscore the fact that the true number of adverse reactions to the abortion pill are not known. The vice president and director of data analytics at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, Dr. James Studnicki, commented on the findings:

“When abortion-related emergencies are disguised as miscarriages, it impairs a doctor’s ability to make informed, evidence-based decisions. That isn’t just a documentation error—it’s a public health crisis. The abortion industry’s push for concealment is unethical and dangerous. Women deserve honest guidance and proper medical care, not advice that jeopardizes their health.”

Conclusion

The recent death of the inventor of mifepristone, Étienne-Émile Baulieu, has helped keep the topic of chemical abortions in the news. After Baulieu’s passing, his widow commented, “His research was guided by his commitment to progress through science, his dedication to women’s freedom and his desire to enable everyone to live better and longer lives.”

Obviously missing from this glowing tribute is concern for the millions of babies who have been put to death via Baulieu’s chemical abortions. As we are learning, chemical abortions are also harming far more women than previously thought – all in the name of “freedom.”

by Kathy Clubb

  1. Due to limited data collection, most Australian abortion statistics are estimates. ↩︎

UN human rights official

UN human rights official rejects gender ideology

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

A top UN human rights official is making waves and helping to protect women by rejecting gender ideology and defending biological sex.

A war of words has broken out at the UN as the top UN human rights official for women told governments to define gender based on biological sex. She also told governments to stop using gender-neutral language when referring to women. “You cannot protect what you cannot define,” said Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls.

“I never imagined the day would come where the mandate would deem it necessary to prepare a report affirming that the words ‘women’ and ‘girls’ refer to distinct biological and legal categories,” said Alsalem as she presented her explosive new report at the 59th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Alsalem said the topic of her report provoked “visceral reactions” and that powerful governments and UN agencies tried to discredit her.

The report on “sex-based” protections for women in international law is the biggest blow to gender ideology since the concept of “gender” was first added to UN policy. The report says gender ideology violates international law and harms women and girls. It also calls out governments for attempting to erase references to “mothers”, “women,” and “girls” in policies and programs.

Alsalem called on governments to preserve sex-based categories in language, policies, and data. She said a failure to do so has “devastating” consequences for women because it leads governments to overlook their unique vulnerabilities and exposes them to increased violence and discrimination.

“Erasing women and women-specific language and needs based on their sex is not only wrong. It is demeaning. It is regressive and constitutes one of the worst forms of violence against women and girls that they can experience,” Alsalem said. Gender-neutral terms promoted by Western governments and UN agencies in recent years include referring to mothers as “pregnant or birthing persons” and referring to women as “bleeders” and “persons who menstruate.”

Alsalem explained that international law protects women based on their biological sex, not their subjective self-identification and that “gender identity” is not a protected legal category. She said that women are entitled to specific protections from violence, including women-only spaces, and that individuals who subjectively self-identify as transgender do not have a right to these same protections based on their subjective self-identification.

The largest area of UN policy and programming where gender ideology has made an impact is “violence against women and girls”. Discarding decades of sex-based laws and policies to protect women, over the last two decades Western governments have promoted the new category of “gender-based violence,” which is not contained in any UN treaty. These policies conflate gender with LGBT issues, thus diluting the focus on women.

The European Union told Alsalem that the gender approach was required under international law. Switzerland and the Netherlands called Alsalem’s approach regressive. Colombia, speaking on behalf of 37 countries, mostly from Europe and Latin America, told Alsalem that her approach was a “step back” for human rights.

Canada said that “gender is a social construct, not confined to anatomy, and vital for understanding how discrimination and violence operate in diverse contexts.” Germany said that “binary classifications and exclusionary terminology can marginalize groups such as LGBTQI+ persons, sex workers, people with disabilities, and those experiencing homelessness.”

Leading UN agencies, including UN Women, UNFPA, WHO, and UNICEF, also rejected Alsalem’s recommendations. They claimed that polices and gender-neutral “gender-based violence” programs are required by international law.

Alsalem pushed back against her critics. She said that biological sex was not “taboo or an outdated concept, but an “innate, immutable, and fundamental aspect of human existence for women and for men alike.”

The Holy See, Kuwait, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Sudan expressed support for Alsalem.

Alsalem has also received pushback at the UN and beyond for her stance against prostitution, and conversion therapies, and for defending women-only sports.

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D and Iulia-Elena Cazan

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.

The Arrogance of Transhumanism

The arrogance of transhumanism

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

Technology has many benefits, but some high-tech fads like transhumanism, seem to treat human life as just another physical process to be manipulated.

Christian faith teaches us humility in light of the mystery of God’s creation of life. Today, as we enter a brave new world of elite technocrats calling for “transhumanism,” this faith is being tested.

We have been warned about the fate of those who seek to become gods on earth. Warnings found in Greek mythology (Prometheus and Icarus), Jewish tales (golems) and Western literature (Frankenstein) are being ignored in today’s secular world of rapid technological advancement. This advancement is evident in artificial intelligence (AI), which places “knowledge” at the fingertips of every person with a phone or a computer; experimentation on human embryos; and technological tools such as CRISPR that can select for human genetic traits. Hubris is a natural consequence. For many, we have become gods.

Technology can be a great boon for human progress, but caution is warranted for some of the latest high-tech fads, which seem to treat human life as just another physical process to be manipulated.

What is Transhumanism?

Transhumanism is the call for three supers—super intelligence, super longevity and super happiness—all gained through technology. Tech billionaires such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are the biggest promoters of transhumanist thinking. While they debate whether transhuman beings will be organic beings with increased lifespans and mental capabilities enhanced through drugs, or inorganic machines uploaded with individual personalities and enhanced thinking ability, they hope that technology will enable humans to design our evolutionary futures.1 Some transhumanists predict that the human mind will be uploaded into digital form; others believe that the future rests in designer babies, artificial wombs and anti-aging therapies.

Transhumanists could be dismissed as computer geeks who have read too much science fiction. But designing babies has become a reality and will become more refined with technological advances. American companies already screen the genetic traits of embryos, discarding the ones with high risk of disease or unwanted traits (such as being male or female), then implant the chosen embryo into a womb. Other researchers are pursuing the development of artificial wombs.2

Technocratic transhumanists believe in using drugs to enhance human cognition. This includes the use of psychedelics, long promoted in Silicon Valley. In the 1980s, the psychedelic drug MDMA, known popularly as Ecstasy, was touted as enhancing feelings of love and social connection that would heal “global trauma” and usher in world peace. This faith in MDMA as a wonder therapeutic drug has continued into the 21st century. In 2024, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration turned down an application by Lykos Therapeutics for MDMA therapy, arguing that more data was needed. Lykos remains, however, a favorite of Big Tech investors who see psychedelics as the future.

The tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel is a major investor in Atai Life Sciences, which is testing ketamine-related drugs. Elon Musk has publicly mentioned his use of small amounts of prescription ketamine, an anesthetic. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has talked about how his son overcame grief following the death of his mother by using ayahuasca, an Amazonian plant psychedelic.3 In a Cabinet meeting on April 30, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins told President Trump that his team was looking at psychedelics as an option to combat veteran suicide.4

Big Tech gurus such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, however, understand some of the dangers of the new age of transhumanism. For example, Musk has warned that AI poses the greatest threat to humanity. It does not take a tech billionaire to see that the promise of bringing people closer together through social media technology has failed. People seem more divided and lonely than ever even though they regularly use TikTok, Instagram, SnapChat or Facebook. And who is not worried about government control of information and enhanced surveillance through technology? Many of our youth are living in an augmented reality through phones, screens and earbuds. We live in an age of in vitro fertilization, genetic manipulation and transgender surgeries.

The pernicious fad of transgender treatment through hormones and mutilating surgery, even on children, could be seen as an offshoot of transhumanist ideology. Probably no worse example of playing God with the natural order may be imagined. However, we should not blame it on Silicon Valley tech titans. Musk is vehemently opposed to transgender treatments of children, having seen one of his own sons “transition” by means of this Frankensteinian perversion of modern medical practice.

Equally Frankensteinian is gain-of-function manipulation of dangerous pathogens, which likely caused the catastrophic Covid-19 pandemic with the involvement of U.S. tax dollars in a Chinese lab. President Trump acted to restrict such research in May. He previously signed several orders to counteract transgender ideology.

Longevity and Immortality

Medical clinics are popping up promising to help clients live longer and better—for a hefty price.5 The goal of these longevity clinics is to extend and optimize a patient’s health for years through early cancer screenings, stem-cell therapies and socalled biological-age testing. Their efficacy is unclear. Venture capital is investing in longevity research, more than doubling the investment between 2021 and 2022 from $27 million to $57 million globally.

While aiming for longevity, scientists have explored the physiological dimensions of death itself. For transhumanists following this work on death, hopes of human immortality have arisen from attempts to keep the brain alive after the human body has failed.6 In 2018 the Silicon Valley AI billionaire entrepreneur Sam Altman reportedly paid $10,000 to join a waiting list to upload the contents of his brain to a cloud computer, on the chance that his consciousness could live on after he dies.

Transhumanists believe that true human immortality is only a speck on the horizon, but some are convinced that the future lies in detaching oneself from one’s physical body. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, seeks to capitalize on this vision of brain life after death through cryonics, the freezing of human bodies and brains in liquid nitrogen after legal death, to be revived (resurrected) once new technology becomes available.

Within the scientific community, cryonics is regarded as quackery and a pseudo-science, but this has not prevented the nonprofit from enlisting close to 2,000 members. More than 200 have already died and had their bodies frozen. Another 116 members have had only their heads preserved. Pet bodies have also been preserved. Immortality does not come cheap, though. Alcor charges $200,000 for freezing a human body or $80,000 for just the head.7

Stéphane Charpier, a professor of neuroscience at Sorbonne University who is a leading scientist in studying brain death, dismisses cryogenics as a “pipe dream.” He acknowledges that humans are capable of “tinkering with brains,” but considers it unimaginable that a machine could replicate complex neural processes.8

New Frontiers in IVF

In vitro fertilization (IVF) offers a devil’s bargain to humanity. It is popular for helping infertile couples to have children, but is also used in ways that lack an appealing justification, including reproduction without both a legal father and mother, eugenic selection of embryos, or careerist postponement of childbearing.

IVF works by extracting eggs from a woman who has been primed with injections of powerful drugs, then fertilizing the eggs with a man’s sperm in a laboratory. After a fertilized egg (zygote) undergoes embryo culture over two to six days, the embryo can be implanted in the would-be mother. Women can freeze dozens of their eggs—a practice sometimes encouraged and paid for by large corporate employers in the U.S.—while they wait to make the decision to get pregnant. After eggs are combined with sperm to form embryos, surplus embryos may be frozen or discarded. How many frozen embryos exist in America is not known.

Embryos may be subjected to experimentation. Research on fetal tissue is permitted on a state-by-state basis. New York state has no limit on how long embryos may be grown for experimentation, while California has a guideline of 12 days.

Embryology has made huge advances in the last three decades, but we are still at the beginning of a wave of unforeseen consequences.9 In the 1990s researchers pioneered preimplantation genetic testing (PGT). An embryologist took single cells biopsied from embryos and identified their sex, as well as certain chromosomal abnormalities. PGT subsequently became increasingly refined, and today nearly half of IVF cycles are tested, at a cost of $3,000-$5,000 per batch.

Eugenics Based on ‘Risk Scores’

There are questions about PGT’s accuracy, but in any case this testing goes beyond the promise of improved health. Newer polygenic embryo studies have identified genes linked to traits ranging from height to likely educational attainment to propensity for mental health disabilities such as depression and schizophrenia. Unlike earlier PGT, which focused on single-gene disorders, polygenic embryo screening (PES) examines the likelihood of developing more complex traits that depend on many genes.

PES provides “risk scores” that rely on identification of hundreds or thousands of genetic variants that can be linked with certain human attributes. PES lends itself to eugenics, the selective breeding of children. Companies have been created to screen embryos for hundreds of conditions. One such company is Orchid, headed by Noor Siddiqui, in Silicon Valley. Orchid provides polygenic screening that produces a risk profile of each embryo’s propensity for certain health conditions. This risk profile aids the selection of which embryo(s) to implant.10

PES has not yet gained wide acceptance, but some surveys show that nearly 4 in 10 people said they were “more likely than not” to use it if it could increase their child’s chance of getting into a top college.11 Several European countries have banned this procedure or limited its use. Britain, for example, does not permit PES, but does allow screening for an approved list of roughly 17,000 single-gene disorders. In the U.S., such screening is not subject to any regulatory oversight. Genomic Prediction, based in New Jersey, has provided risk scores for at least 420 clients involving more than 1,600 embryos.

Legal and Ethical Conundrums

The advances in embryo research have given rise to ethical and legal problems. In one among many similar disputes, a Tennessee divorce court in 1992 concluded that embryos “are not, strictly speaking, either ‘persons’ or ‘property,’ but occupy an interim category that entitles them to special respect because of their potential for human life.” Nonetheless, the court ruled in favor of the father who wanted to destroy seven frozen embryos, while his wife wanted to donate them to others. The court upheld the father’s claim, based on a contractual provision, that he should not have to father children against his will.12

State legislatures have only begun to address the status of embryos. In 2018, the Arizona legislature passed a law requiring judges to award disputed embryos to bring in vitro human embryos to birth and not keep them frozen in storage, regardless of preexisting legal contracts.13

Spurred on by a controversy that arose from an Alabama court decision during his 2024 presidential campaign, President Trump signed an executive order this year that calls for policy recommendations to protect IVF and lower its costs. Many around his administration support his pro-natal perspective and are strong supporters of IVF. Despite having experienced no known infertility issues, Elon Musk has used IVF to produce most of his many known children (some with the assistance of paid surrogate mothers). Peter Thiel has invested in multiple fertility-related companies.14

There is widespread concern in the developed world about declining birth rates, as described in the May 2025 Mindszenty Report. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to see IVF as a policy solution to this problem or to push governmental support of the $25 billion global IVF industry. IVF is very expensive and unpleasant, has a low success rate, and poses significant health risks for both the mother and the offspring.15 There are obvious ethical problems with destroying embryos, practicing eugenic selection of embryos, experimenting on embryos, and engineering children who may never know both of their biological parents. IVF is contrary to Catholic teaching.

Enter the Brave New World

Couples can be infertile for various reasons, but both eggs and sperm decline in quality with age. Therefore, IVF is less effective for older would-be parents. Changing the culture to encourage more marriage and childbearing for women in their 20s would be a preferable way to boost birth rates. And we certainly do not want the government to promote IVF, or related assisted reproductive technologies such as purchased eggs and surrogate motherhood, for gay couples or single parents.16

We are at a point in embryo science that allows for the culling of the population. Whether it is called positive or negative eugenics, it is all eugenics in the end. Although it is possible to do IVF without destroying embryos, IVF in the U.S. commonly entails the rejection and elimination of at least several embryonic human beings.17 Designer babies culled from a herd of subsequently discarded sibling embryos may not appreciate their commoditized origins.

Essential to any discussion of transhumanism or IVF is the importance of understanding God and the mystery of our creation and His design for the world. Removal of God from the human equation tends to breed nihilism and hopelessness.18 Transhumanism and Christianity present divergent value systems. For the transhumanist, the highest virtue is intelligence and the highest goal is to defeat death. Christians believe that the greatest ideal is love—love of others, including one’s own children, in their flawed humanity, and love of God. Transhumanism is a new religion, which should not replace God.

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.

  1. Alexander Thomas, “Transhumanism: Billionaires Want to Use Tech to Tech to
    Enhance Our Abilities,” The Conversation, January 16, 2024. ↩︎
  2. Mark Legg, “What Does the Bible Say About Transhumanism?” Denison Forum, June
    20, 2023. ↩︎
  3. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/opinion/tech-billionaires-psychedelics.html. ↩︎
  4. https://www.marijuanamoment.net/va-secretary-tells-trump-about-psychedelicspotential-to-combat-military-veteran-suicide-crisis-at-cabinet-meeting/;
    https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/va-sec-doug-collins-says-agency-willlook-at-psychedelic-other-alternative-treatments/85-d90e6b9d-a705-4f09-aeda5b839879bd03 ↩︎
  5. Alex Janin, “The Longevity Clinic Will See You Now—for $100,000,” Wall Street
    Journal, July 10, 2023; Alex Janin, “Want Better Health and Status? For
    $250,000, Longevity Clinics Promise Both,” Wall Street Journal, April 6, 2025. ↩︎
  6. https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/columns/health-andbiotech/immortality-an-ancient-fantasy-revived-by-transhumanism/. ↩︎
  7. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-12-19/see-inside-alcor-lifeextension-s-cryogenics-facility-in-arizona. ↩︎
  8. Ibid. ↩︎
  9. This discussion of IVF and the current state of embryo research draws heavily from
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/25/opinion/human-embryoexperiments-timeline.html; and https://answersingenesis.org/sanctity-oflife/2025/04/24/new-york-times-we-owe-clustercells/?srsltid=AfmBOoqAkPMgoM175_FK6K6D6kVjrK7t7T9ulxqgShugqUGsZsPK07gt. ↩︎
  10. Anna Louie Sussman, “Should Human Life be Optimized?”
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/04/01/opinion/ivf-gene-selectionfertility.html. ↩︎
  11. https://answersingenesis.org/sanctity-of-life/2025/04/24/new-york-times-we-oweclustercells/?srsltid=AfmBOoqAkPMgoM175_FK6K6D6kVjrK7t7T9ulxqgShugqUGsZsPK07gtd. ↩︎
  12. Ibid. ↩︎
  13. Ibid. ↩︎
  14. https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/FS268.pdf. See also n. 17. ↩︎
  15. See “A Comprehensive Report on the Risks of Assisted Reproductive Technology” by
    Katie Fell for the Center of Bioethics and Culture Network, https://cbcnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Comprehensive-Paper-on-ART-Final.pdf. ↩︎
  16. For an in-depth discussion of surrogate motherhood and purchased eggs, see
    Mindszenty Report, December 2019. ↩︎
  17. Kayla Bartsch, “Eugenics Gets a Modern Facelift, with Investment from Peter Thiel,”
    National Review, April 4, 2025. See also
    https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2024/12/96647/. ↩︎
  18. https://firstthings.com/the-impossibility-of-christian-transhumanism/. ↩︎
Empty playground due to declining birth rates

Declining birth rates should worry us all

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

When asked what keeps him awake at night, Elon Musk said America’s declining birth rate. Falling birth rates in the U.S. and other developed countries should keep us all awake at night.

Since 2007, the birth rate in the United States has plummeted by 20 percent. This precipitous decline cannot be explained by demographic, economic or policy changes alone.1 At the end of the postwar baby boom in 1964, the U.S. birth rate began a long period of decline. By 2001 the birth rate had begun to fall significantly, and then it went off a cliff starting in 2007. This trend is continuing and experts see no signs that it will be reversed.

Until 2001, falling birth rates in the U.S. and much of the developed world could reasonably be attributed to urbanization, women’s expanded career opportunities and birth control. The sharper drop in the U.S. since 2007, while reflecting those general trends, suggests that something more is going on today. One explanation might be found in an anti-natalist attitude that arose among American elites since the Second World War and gradually permeated the broader culture, now finding its fullest expression among Gen Z youth.

Population Implosion

Today in 63 countries the size of the population has peaked and is in decline.2 For a population to replace itself, the fertility rate needs to be at least 2.1 children born per woman. America’s fertility rate is now 1.7 children born per woman and is expected to fall to 1.3 by the end of the decade.

The prospects are grimmer for other nations. Taiwan’s fertility rate has fallen to 0.865. In Japan the rate is 1.21. In South Korea, where it is 0.72, the total population is expected to decline by half by the year 2100. Australia’s fertility rate now stands at 1.6. Although fertility rates remain high in Africa, by 2100 97 percent of all countries will have below-replacement rates if present trends continue. The only countries projected to have a rate exceeding 2.1 are Samoa, Somalia, Tonga, Niger, Chad and Tajikistan.3

The rapid drop in birth rates beginning in 2007 caught policymakers and demographers by surprise. Demographers had projected a continuing decline, but it has been much steeper than expected. As the younger population declines, the general population becomes older on average. By 2070 there will be more people in the world over 65 than under 25.

A disproportionately aged population creates serious social and economic problems. A rising older population means escalating costs and diminishing worker-paid tax revenues for seniors’ health care, housing and general support. Dr. Natalia V. Bhattcharjee, the co-author of a University of Washington study, observes that the global population trends can be expected to “completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will necessitate reorganizing societies.”4

The dip in birth rates began in the 1960s with the introduction and widespread use of oral contraception— the vast chemical experiment on women commonly known as the Pill. This coincided with another great social change: Women poured into the work force. As young women increasingly pursued higher education and jobs and became less dependent on men financially, they postponed marriage and children. The older the woman, the lower her fertility.5 Meanwhile, Second Wave feminists devalued childbearing and homemaking.

Governments experiencing declines in fertility rates have responded through an array of policies to encourage having more children. These policies have included tax breaks, subsidies, mandated maternity and paternity leaves, and job protections for families having children. Such policies have generally produced minimal results.

Chinese authorities have proposed incentives to encourage couples to have more babies, including expanded maternity leave, financial and tax benefits for having children, and housing subsidies. More will be needed, though, to encourage births after decades of China’s barbaric one child policy. Previous habits die hard, and high housing prices, stagnant economic growth and a shortage of child care continue to depress childbearing in China as in many other nations.

For the last half decade or so, the South Korean government has been urging families to have more children. The government has invested the equivalent of billions of dollars to promote marriage and birth rates. New policies allowing expectant mothers to work reduced hours and new fathers to take extended parental leave were enacted. For the first time since 2015, South Koreans had more babies in 2024 than in the previous year. Still, elderly South Koreans outnumber the young. Whether the recent increase in births is a blip or the beginning of a reversal in population decline remains to be seen. South Korea still has one of the lowest birth rates of any nation.6

Extreme Feminist Ideologies

One of the challenges to South Korea’s pro-natalist policies has come from the militant South Korean feminist movement.7 This movement is known as 4B and has attracted international attention. The 4B name comes from four Korean words beginning with “bi” (meaning “no”): bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating) and bisekseu (no sex).

4B is an anti-heterosexuality movement that echoes American militant feminists such as Mary Daly, a tenured theology professor at Boston College who died in 2010. Daly espoused “a drastic reduction in the population of males” as an efficient way to effect a “decontamination of the Earth.”8 In her two widely read books, Quintessence : Realizing the Archaic Future (1998) and Amazon Grace: Re-calling the Courage to Sin Big (2006), she imagined voyages to the 2048 B.E. (“Biophilic Era”), where she communes with a like-minded tribe of unfettered lesbians, “Wild Women” on a “Lost and Found Continent.” These fictional women discovered that they could impregnate themselves without males—an act supposedly repressed by the all-male Catholic Church.9

At the end of the Second World War, a small group of men in philanthropic foundations, universities and government concluded that to avoid another global war over scarce land and resources, the rate of population growth needed to be reduced. These men called for population control through. artificial contraception. Foundations such as the Population Council, established by John D. Rockefeller 3rd, helped establish family planning programs in Asia and later in Latin America.

Origins of Anti-Natalist Culture

Other population-control advocates such as Hugh Moore, founder of the Dixie Cup paper cup manufacturer, promoted harsher and more coercive measures to reduce population growth—government-supported sterilization, assisted suicide, extra taxes on families with more than two children, and even the notion of contraceptives in public water supplies.

American elites within government and the private philanthropic sector joined with the United Nations and other international agencies to spread population-control programs, especially in Southeast Asia, from the 1950s to the 1970s. USAID population-control efforts under the fanatical Reimert Ravenholt came under fierce criticism by feminists for his agency’s coercive policies in Southeast Asia, which included distribution of an intrauterine device banned in the U.S.

In the 1970s, abetted by Paul R. Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb, population-control advocates turned to environmental activism to warn the world of coming wars, famine and social unrest as consequences of overpopulation. Second Wave feminist activists further energized the population-control movement through demands for expanding abortion rights and gay rights.

These activist movements arose separately with their own histories and trajectories, but contributed to a growing antinatalist culture. Their advocates shared a self-image as crusaders for a better and healthier world. While facing at times intense resistance in what became known as the culture war, they affected politics and gained influence in educational, media and cultural institutions.

What emerged was an anti-natalist ethos embedded in a hyper-individualized culture. Anti-natalism should be seen not merely as the hidden hand of vague social forces such as modernity and urbanization, but as a direct result of American elites pushing a cultural agenda. This agenda includes easy access to abortion and contraception, expansive sex education/indoctrination in the classroom, LGBTQ rights, and a mentality of entitlement to promiscuous sex without the need for marriage.

Gen Z (those born in the late 1990s or early 21st century) is now experiencing the full effects of this 75-year cultural shift.10 Birth rates among women in their 20s have been falling since the mid-1990s, accelerating in the Great Recession of 2008 and continuing during the Covid-19 pandemic. While the long, gradual decline in teen births in the U.S. during that period is a positive development, the same cannot be said for women in their 20s. Births have fallen for women both with and without college degrees and cannot be ascribed solely to economic factors. More young people, especially young women, simply don’t consider marriage and children a high priority. Only 45 percent of young women say they want to have kids at some point in their lives, while 57 percent of young men (between 18 and 25 years old) say they want to be fathers. 11

Accordingly, marriage rates are dropping across demographic lines, with the exception of Asian Americans. In 1950, close to 80 percent of American households were married couples. Since 2010 the share has fallen to around half. In addition, men and women are marrying later on average—about age 30 for men and 29 for women.12

Attitudes toward this decline in marriage and childbirth break along political lines. Conservatives are worried about it, while only a fifth of liberals say it is worrisome.13 Progressives who claim to care about “community” should be concerned. The fact is that married couples are much, much more involved in their communities than singles.14 Married adults are far more likely to attend community meetings, undertake volunteer work, and visit a library. People who are married tend to be happier and healthier. And obviously, it is preferable for children to be raised by married parents. The U.S. percentage of births to unwed mothers is far too high—40 percent.

Generation Z Culture

If a strong marriage rate is a measure of a happy and healthy community, prospects for Gen Z don’t look good. Not only are Gen Zers postponing marriage; substantial numbers say they don’t want to marry or have children at all.

Political polarization among the young has not helped matters. More than half of all single young women report that they will not date a Trump supporter, while nearly 4 in 10 young men (18-25 years old) say they are less likely to date someone who identifies as a feminist.15 The latter preference may be prudent, but young non-feminist women can be hard to find, especially in large cities.

Some young women have become so extreme in their political filtering that they have taken vows of celibacy and identify as “self-partnered.”16 This phenomenon is part of the so-called “heteropessimism” movement, in which young women are declaring that heterosexual sex violates a woman’s privacy, freedom and self-determination. This movement might be dismissed as silly, but, shockingly, 28.5 percent of Gen Z women identify themselves as LGBTQ+.17

Other factors that could be depressing rates of marriage and childbearing include the erosion of organized religion, high U.S. student debtand higher costs of housing and cars. There is also a wider smorgasbord of enticing ways for young adults to spend their time and money instead of on children, such as travel, entertainment, restaurants, gambling, gaming and online pornography. Children bring heavy costs in return for deferred gratification and profoundly satisfying, non-materialistic rewards.

Data might suggest that anti-natalist elites have won the cultural war. However, some within Gen Z are pushing back against the culture of isolation. By some measures, church attendance among Gen Z has begun to stabilize or increase, especially among young men. This is the case in the U.S. as well as the U.K.

Christianity offers an antidote to a culture in disarray. It will take prayer and evangelisation by the whole Christian church for a counter-revolution to succeed. The young know that the current culture has failed them, and as they look for an alternative, Christ awaits with open arms.

The future of the world belongs to those who show up. To show up, they must first be born.

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.

  1. https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of-the-declining-u-s-birth-rate. The birth rate is the
    total number of live births in a year per 1,000 people in a population. ↩︎
  2. These countries include 28 percent of the world’s population. They include countries
    such as China, Germany, Japan and the Russian Federation. In 48 other countries the
    population is projected to peak within the next 30 years. ↩︎
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/11/global-birthrates-dropping. ↩︎
  4. Ibid. ↩︎
  5. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/world-population-prospects-2024. ↩︎
  6. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2025/03/07/south-koreas-baby-bump. ↩︎
  7. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/15/4b-south-korea-feminist-movementdonald-trump-election-backlash. ↩︎
  8. https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/mary-on-the-contrary/. ↩︎
  9. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/style/4b-movement.html. ↩︎
  10. https://econofact.org/the-mystery-of-the-declining-u-s-birth-rate. ↩︎
  11. https://www.pewresearch.org/shortreads/2024/02/15/among-young-adults-withoutchildren-men-are-more-likely-than-women-to-say-they-want-to-be-parents-someday/. ↩︎
  12. https://usafacts.org/articles/state-relationships-marriages-and-living-alone-us/;
    https://uvamagazine.org/articles/the_marriage_crisis. ↩︎
  13. https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-societal-cost-of-the-marriage-decline. ↩︎
  14. Ibid.; https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/10/marriage-and-divorce.html. ↩︎
  15. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-romance-howpolitics-and-pessimism-influence-dating-experiences/. ↩︎
  16. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/style/women-trump-4b-movementheteropessimism.html. ↩︎
  17. https://news.gallup.com/poll/611864/lgbtq-identification.aspx. ↩︎

Abortion expansion - unborn baby

Abortion access continues to expand in Australia

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

By Kathy Clubb

The outlook is grim for Australian babies as abortion expansion is becoming a top priority for progressive politicians, especially in the Greens party.

While the abortion rate in Australia has remained fairly steady in recent years, the powerful abortion lobby has not stopped its attempts to make it even easier, cheaper and more convenient for mothers to have their unwanted babies put to death.

There are estimated to be around 100,000 abortions committed in Australia every year, with about half of those achieved by the chemical regimen of mifepristone, also known as RU-486, and misoprostol. In Australia, this protocol is manufactured and sold by Marie Stopes International as ‘MS-2 Step’.

While the more stringent protections surrounding surgical abortions remain in place, the advent of chemical abortions has resulted in a relaxation of many policies. In 2023, the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Act) sought to bring Australia into line with other higher-income nations and removed restrictions on who can prescribe and dispense mifepristone and misoprostol. The current gestational limit for the use of MS-2 Step is 63 days.

Prescribing drugs instead of performing surgical abortions makes life easier for abortion providers, as there is less effort and minimal followup; in many cases, women who experience side-effects are directed to go straight to their local emergency department rather than return to the abortion practitioner.

Despite the availability of the abortion pill, and the general acceptance of abortion by our society, Australia states are experiencing a universal push for abortion expansion. Fuelled largely by the Greens party, at the heart of this push is a diabolical industry which is never content, no matter how many babies it kills.

A new bill for New South Wales

A proposed amendment to the New South Wales abortion law is on the table and it sets a dangerous precedent for the conscience rights of medical professions and institutions. If successful, the Abortion Law Reform Amendment (Health Care Access) Bill 2025 would force pro-life health professionals to refer for abortions. It also seeks to force the Minister for Health to ensure that every women in New South Wales can easily access an abortion and that abortion is widely, publicly promoted by LHDs (Local Health Districts).

Amanda Cohn, the MLC putting forward the bill, is a doctor who when in practice, aborted babies via the abortion pill. Cohn, a member of the radically pro-abortion Greens Party, believes that abortion must be ’embedded within mainstream public health services’ in order to guarantee its availability in Australia.

Consistent with the new TGA policy, the bill seeks to expand the number of medical professionals who are able to provide abortions. The existing law allows for ‘medical practitioners’ while the proposed law would enable endorsed midwives, nurse practitioners and other nominated registered health practitioners to prescribe the abortion pill up to 9 weeks gestation.

The bill is very short, and there are some sections that do not seem to have been thought through adequately from either a legal or medical point of view. Schedule 1-[5] aims “to expand the class of health practitioners who may perform a termination on a person who is not more than 22 weeks pregnant“, yet the abortion pill may only be prescribed to 9 weeks gestation. So does this bill require non-doctors to perform surgical abortions between 9 weeks and 22 weeks gestation? Or does it allow the abortion pill to be prescribed past the maximum allowable date through the second trimester? FLI attempted to contact Dr. Cohn to have this section explained, but has received no response at the time of publishing.

Killing Babies is healthcare?

Cohn’s website explains the details of her bill and her philosophy of abortion as healthcare:

“At least first-trimester surgical abortions should be provided at every public hospital in NSW that provides reproductive health services, by tying service provision to funding. If a hospital provides birthing services and can support someone experiencing a miscarriage, it can provide abortion. This will not only address the postcode lottery but also provide a level of privacy for people who may not feel comfortable or safe accessing a standalone reproductive health service.

“GPs should be supported to become medical abortion prescribers, so that people can access comprehensive reproductive health care in the community from a professional they already know and trust. This is medically straightforward but currently requires GPs to undertake additional training, unpaid and in their free time, because it is not a standard part of their training.

Cohn is also calling for the removal of mandatory reporting obligations for practitioners. These require abortions to be reported to the Secretary of the Ministry of Health within 28 days, which inexplicably, Cohn links to doctors not wanting to provide abortions. Cohn told the ABC that mandatory reporting ” is quite unnecessary and they can be a barrier for some health practitioners wanting to become abortion providers.”

Perhaps most concerning of all, explicitly demanding that departments and institutions be forced to provide abortion services. This means that if a hospital is not able to source an abortionist, then its pro-life staff may be forced to be involved in the taking of an unborn human life.

Cohn’s proposal that mandatory reporting by abortion providers be discontinued is in direct conflict with suggestions contained in the 5-year abortion law reform review. The review’s Report, published last September, recommended that “The Ministry of Health review the data notification requirements to consider how this may be improved to ensure data is consistently reported and of sufficient quality, to support service planning and, if necessary, update”

Canberra is the model for Australia

The proposed New South Wales laws would allow it to conform with permissive abortion laws already existing in other states. Victoria’s abortion law has included a conscience-violating clause since 2008; Tasmania since 2013.

The ACT introduced a similar amendment last year, as part of its ‘accessible abortions scheme’, forcing pro-life medical practitioners to violate their consciences by referring patients to another practitioner who will provide an abortion or at least providing information so that patients can find one themselves.

This was concurrent with a nationwide relaxation allowing nurse practitioners and authorised midwives to prescribe the abortion pill.

The first part of the ‘accessible abortions scheme’, which came in April 2023. made abortions free for ACT residents, even if they are not covered by Medicare. Thus immigrants are able to access free abortions if they love in Canberra! Under the same scheme, residents can receive long-acting reversible contraceptives, known as LARCs, which apart from being harmful to women, have the potential to cause abortions.

The similarity between abortion laws in the various states, shows that the long-term goal of the abortion lobby is to have every state and territory mimic the ACT: the end game is to have free abortions for everyone with medical staff and hospitals being forced to provide them.

Pregnancy Support is Decreasing

The NSW bill comes at a time when it is becoming more difficult for women to access pregnancy support; some private hospitals are no longer able to provide maternity services. Healthscope, Australia’s second largest hospital operator, has just announced that its hospitals in Darwin and Hobart are closing their maternity departments. By contrast, Hobart Private, Healthscope’s Hobart facility, will continue to provide abortions to 26 weeks.

Citing population decline and inability to secure practitioners, Healthscope and the wider private hospital industry are hoping for more government funding to enable them to maintain services. It is concerning that under the influence of pro-abortion politicians like those found in the Greens Party, increased funding will almost certainly be tied to abortion provision.

Workforce shortages are currently affecting many medical departments (due in part to mass sackings under COVID vaccine mandates) and the Financial Review reports that maternity and mental health services are suffering the most. It is ironic to think that as the population rate decreases, the abortion services which play so large a role in demographic decline are set to expand. To add a cruel twist, the mental health services essential for the healing of post-abortive mothers, are also shrinking.

Unintended consequences

Women’s Health Tasmania has begun to unwittingly highlight the reality of the harm done to women by abortion by providing its own brand of post-abortion support. The programme doesn’t acknowledge the intrinsic harm caused by an abortion, nor the fact that a baby is deliberately killed, rather it seems designed to make mothers feel peaceful about having their children put to death.

Yet, this is really an admission that many women feel so emotionally scarred by their abortion that they require outside assistance to deal with the aftermath. It is likewise a subtle confession of one unintended consequence of terminating a child’s life: the guilt that threatens to overshadow a post-abortive mother’s feeling of relief or empowerment.

In the face of this onslaught of abortion expansion comes a new cause for alarm. The pro-life organisation Students for Life have just discovered that residue from the abortion drug, mifepristone, is being found in drinking water in the US. This constitutes a ‘forever chemical’ and violated America’s EPA standards. The effect this poison is having on female and male fertility across the population can only be guessed at.

This article first appeared at Family Life International.

Sacrifice, a mother stays home with her child

Sacrifice: a viable alternative to institutional childcare?

Published on by EF TeamLeave a comment

By Kathy Clubb

Even secular commentators are noticing that children are better off having their mothers at home and are promoting the value of self-sacrifice.

The decision to place a child into institutional childcare is usually motivated by one of three things: financial gain – a mother needs to work to increase her family’s income; intellectual gain – the mother wants to have her talents or intellect recognised outside the home; or personal gain – a mother wants the freedom to pursue her own desires and from the burden of child-rearing. In some cases, the decision is a combination of all three. Yet given the indisputable evidence of harm suffered by children who undergo extended, outsourced childcare, perhaps it is time parents considered a challenging alternative: poverty in both the material and spiritual aspects.

Poverty, as experienced by most people in developed Western nations, is a far cry from the dirt-poor experience of our forebears. ‘Poverty’ by today’s standards, is more likely to involve forgoing expensive holidays and large modern homes, rather than forgoing food, clothing or a weatherproof house. The modern form of poverty is aligned with the notions of frugality and modest living, and often necessitates a degree of self-sufficiency: sewing clothes, growing food, or learning home maintenance skills.

However, even this relatively affluent type of poverty can inspire terror into a culture used to an excessively-high living standard, and so inflation, rising interest rates and financial uncertainty lure mothers into the workforce, oblivious to the economic impact of government-subsidised childcare.

We can all sympathise with families who are close to financial breaking point and facing the prospect of losing their home due to an inability to make the mortgage repayments. Yet, at what point does saving the family home (or purchasing one) become a matter of placing material possessions above the needs of children? Surely it is preferable to accept a life of renting, or living in a shabby or small home over outsourcing childcare, and giving children the subtle message that they are less important to their parents than money?

Other mothers may be in a better financial position but want their skills and gifts recognised in the workplace or by their academic peers. This is one trap mentioned by clinical social worker, Erica Komisar, who spoke at a recent meeting of ARC – the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Addressing the harms of institutionalised child care, she gives a wholistic appraisal of the value of parents, concluding that motherhood, more than simply being a role, is a vocation – a surprising conclusion for a secular psychoanalyst. Komisar states that she has met many women who want to stay home with their children but are pressured to return to the workforce because they are ‘too intelligent’ to be stay-at-home mothers.

Komisar also addresses the economic aspect, suggesting that couples should be realistic about the financial impact of children prior to marriage, and not expect a new mother to return to work, as a matter of course. She points out the need for sacrifice, noting that this is an antidote to the prevailing selfishness which makes parenthood so difficult for many of today’s young couples. Refreshingly, Komisar acknowledges the beneficial effects of the extended family, and encourages people to see the essential goodness of family life and to accept its responsibilities in order to enjoy its rewards.

The idea of self-sacrifice is echoed by Emily Finley, in her thoughtful article, ‘Mother Culture’ and Mothers as Transmitters of Culture. Finley addresses our culture’s obsession with ‘self-care’, highlighting that a mother’s experience of caring for her family is actually the means for her to experience fulfilment, rather than being an obstacle to it.

Finley also argues that stay-at-home mothers who make an effort to educate themselves are a powerful weapon in the fight to regain Christian culture. She explains how the modus operandi of revolutionary forces all the way from the Jacobins to contemporary woke neo-conservatives always includes the ‘liberation’ of women from the obligation to raise their own children. She writes, “Women who remained at home to raise their children were passing on the old ways and traditions and were, moreover, not economic contributors to the collective.”

It is good to consider that not all the harms of institutional childcare manifest in the form of poor academic outcomes or a propensity to break the law as adults. Another potential negative is the perpetuating of a cycle of over-achievement: the emptiness of this lifestyle is often hidden beneath the trappings of external success. Similarly, the contribution made by a well-educated, stay-at-home mother to her family is often overlooked. The social scientist measures only tangible markers such as qualifications, employment achievements, financial assets and other material values. Forming children’s souls and thereby improving the culture is simply too subtle a criterion. Not all of our human actions can be evaluated, tabled and then summarised in a neat abstract, and in any case, it is that kind of utilitarian thinking which is behind the philosophy that introduced out-of-home childcare in the first place.

Catholic writer Noelle Mering believes that rather than relying on studies to prove the harms or otherwise of institutional childcare and early education, we should be asking if childcare can replace a mother. She makes a good point. Whether or not a study shows that prolonged daycare is harmful, it can never place a value on motherhood itself. The idea that studies should be our source of guidance is itself a dehumanising conclusion. Mering continues, referring to mothers: “Indeed, her time, investment, and consistency are invaluable, beyond what any pile of statistics can demonstrate—and these can be discounted, and too often are, if we have succumbed to a reductive technocratic vision of the person.”

For parents to rely on traditions and on an intuition about what is good for their children is yet another exercise in poverty. To decide that, in the face of pressure from family members, co-workers, economic forces and cultural norms, they will personally raise their children, is not likely to win them any awards or accolades. However, parents who choose this kind of poverty for the sake of their children will not go unrewarded: their legacy will be a cultural contribution with an eternal value.

SOURCES:

Dear Science: What if Kids Need Their Moms? link

Psychoanalyst’s Advice For Young Parents link

“Mother Culture” and Mothers as Transmitters of Culture link

Another Perspective on the Latest research on Early Child Care link