AS ASIA FACES POPULATION DECLINE CRISIS, SOME COUNTRIES EXPAND ABORTION ACCESS, by Bridget Sielicki. “Recent reports have revealed that a number of East Asian countries face a startling population decline that may drastically impact the future of those countries, while having worldwide economic consequences. Though these reports reflect the dire situation, there is little recognition that lax abortion laws coupled with an increased worldview that children are a burden have had a direct impact on the population crisis experienced in much of the world.” Read more here.
IT’S TIME TO PUT PARENTS IN CHARGE OF THEIR CHILDREN’S ONLINE SAFETY, by Mike Schultz and Corinne Johnson. “Childhood today is vastly different from the past, dominated by limitless online access via social media on handheld devices, which parents struggle to monitor. Such excessive exposure is causing significant harm to our youth. In response, the Utah State Legislature, Utah Parents United and other groups are working to protect the crucial parent-child relationship, which is essential for shielding children from the potential hazards of social media.” Read more here.
DISSING CASS, by Bernard Lane. “A senior official of an Australian human rights body has likened England’s landmark Cass report to disinformation from a ‘village idiot’. In a public webinar earlier this week, Kenton Miller of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission also falsely claimed that the Cass review’s survey of the evidence for youth gender medicine was ‘based on a very limited number of studies only within the UK.’ He told the webinar audience that the Cass review was ‘not legitimate at all’ and he put it in the context of a surge in ‘dangerous messaging’ that it was ‘unnatural’ to be transgender.” Read more here.
TRANSGENDER ISSUE PROMPTS INTERNATIONAL PUSHBACK, by Rebecca Oas, Ph.D. “While the UN was observing its annual day against ‘homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia,’ protesters in Peru were protesting that country’s recent classification of transgenderism as a mental illness in health insurance. Meanwhile, several European countries including Italy refused to sign an EU declaration related to the annual observance. The Italian family minister called the declaration ‘unbalanced’ and criticized the celebration for denying ‘not only biology but also the body, which is based on the gender difference between men and women.’” Read more here.
NEW RESEARCH CONFIRMS HAVING MARRIED PARENTS HELPS KIDS GET AHEAD, by Isabel Sawhill and Kai Smith. “The impact of family structure, particularly marriage, on children’s well-being has always been a somewhat controversial topic, but that doesn’t make it any less salient. … Some researchers4 have made the case that marriage doesn’t matter much, while others have argued that marriage does matter. This raises the question—who is right? How much difference does marriage make in determining children’s later-in life success? The short answer is that marriage still matters. And depending on what metric you examine, marriage can matter a lot.” Read more here.
News from the United Nations