Family Watch Newswire
The Family Watch Newswire is a service of Family Watch International that highlights important news items and useful analysis on the family and family-related issues from around the world.
LIFE
TENNESSEE BANS ‘ABORTION TRAFFICKING’ OF UNDERAGE GIRLS. The new Class C felony “abortion trafficking of a minor” law applies to an adult who “recruits, harbors, or transports” a pregnant girl 17 or younger within the state for the purpose of procuring an abortion. Read more here.
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PUTS ELDERLY WOMAN IN PRISON FOR 25 MONTHS FOR PROTESTING ABORTION. Paulette Harlow, 73, is one of a dozen pro-life Americans the Biden administration has targeted with prosecution for protesting abortions while it ignores hundreds of pro-abortion crimes committed across America. Read more here.
UK: REPEAT ABORTIONS ACCOUNTED FOR OVER 40% OF ALL ABORTIONS IN 2022. According to the 2022 annual abortion statistics for England and Wales, repeat abortions in 2022, in which the woman undergoing the abortion had had one or more previous abortions, increased by 11,376 or 12.46 percent compared with the previous year. Read more here.
FACT SHEET: REASONS FOR ABORTION. The Charlotte Lozier Institute compiled publicly available data from the eight states that collected and reported 2021 data on women’s reasons for choosing abortion and concluded that common exceptions – including rape, incest and risk to the woman’s life – are estimated to account for less than 5 percent of all abortions. Read more here.
DELAWARE HOUSE VOTES FOR MEDICAID AND PRIVATE INSURANCE TO PAY FOR ABORTION TO ALLEVIATE ‘STIGMA.’ The Delaware House of Representatives passed a resolution that would require all health plans for Medicaid, private health insurance plans and state employee insurance plans to cover abortion-related services to help alleviate “constraints and stigma” associated with abortion. Read more here.
GENDER
BIDEN TRASHED FOR PRIDE MONTH POSTS DEFENDING CHILD MUTILATION. President Joe Biden took a virtual beating for a series of posts — on the official White House website and across social media platforms — cheering the beginning of LGBTQ pride month and defending the mutilation of children in the name of radical gender ideology. Read more here.
UK: TORIES PLEDGE TO TACKLE ‘CONFUSION’ OVER LEGAL DEFINITION OF SEX. The Conservatives have promised to rewrite the Equality Act so that protections it enshrines on the basis of a person’s sex apply only to their biological sex. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the “safety of women and girls” meant the “current confusion around definitions of sex and gender” cannot be allowed to continue. Read more here.
MISS UNIVERSE CO-OWNER SAYS TRANS AND MARRIED WOMEN ‘CAN COMPETE’ UNDER NEW GUIDELINES ‘BUT THEY CANNOT WIN.’ Anne Jakapong Jakrajutatip, former CEO of Miss Universe, was videotaped at a board meeting stating that trans men will be allowed to compete in the pageant, but they will not be permitted to win. Read more here.
HUMAN SEXUALITY
VA HOSPITAL REPLACES AMERICAN FLAG WITH LGBT FLAG. The American flag was reportedly removed and replaced with a pride flag inside the VA medical center in Orlando, Florida, and a sign was posted asking veterans to provide their preferred pronouns. Read more here.
COMPANIES TO SCALE BACK LGBT CAMPAIGNS FOR PRIDE AFTER BUD LIGHT, TARGET BOYCOTTS LAST YEAR: REPORT. As Pride Month begins this year, many companies will reportedly be scaling back their LGBTQ+ advocacy campaigns because of the notable market declines and loss of value from last year’s nationwide boycotts. Read more here.
SCHOLASTIC ENCOURAGES TEACHERS TO ‘DISRUPT THE STATUS QUO’ WITH LGBT BOOKS FOR PRIDE MONTH. In its recently released 2024 guide for the annual “Read With Pride” initiative, Scholastic asserts that educators and caregivers “absolutely know queer children” in their classrooms, libraries, and communities, regardless of whether these children are out to themselves or others. Read more here.
BIDEN STATE DEPARTMENT SPENDING MILLIONS ON FOREIGN LGBTQ EVENTS AS ‘PRIDE MONTH’ APPROACHES. President Joe Biden’s State Department bankrolled a homosexual film festival, an LGBTQ community conference and other pride events in Australia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria in the lead-up to June, according to grant records. Read more here.
CONSERVATIVE INSTITUTE HOSTS ‘EX-GAY VISIBILITY DAY’: ‘STORIES THAT DESERVE TO BE HEARD.’ The Ruth Institute hosted an “Ex-Gay Visibility Day” to counter pride month festivities and acknowledge the many people who have left the LGBT identity behind. Read more here.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
LAWSUIT: LOS ANGELES CO. FIRE DEPT. ‘RETALIATED’ AGAINST EMPLOYEE WHO REFUSED TO RAISE PRIDE FLAG. Veteran county employee Captain Jeffrey Little alleges that the fire department violated his religious freedom when it ordered him to raise the so-called “Progress Pride” flag after he requested a religious exemption. Read more here.
LA CHRISTIAN LIFEGUARD SUSPENDED FOR REFUSING TO FLY A PRIDE FLAG. Los Angeles lifeguard Jeffrey Little has been suspended for refusing to choose between his faith and flying a pride flag at Will Rogers Beach. Read more here.
GENERAL INTEREST
LGBT ACTIVISTS ATTACK ITALIAN PRO-FAMILY GROUP’S HEADQUARTERS FOR SECOND TIME IN 10 DAYS. The Rome headquarters of Pro Vita e Famiglia reported that “LGBTQAI+ activists” vandalized the group’s headquarters with threats like “you will pay,” “We’ll not give you peace,” and “trans riot.” Read more here.
OPINION & ANALYSIS
SHOCK NEWS: MARRIAGE IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH, by David Strom. “In the least shocking news of the day, a new study has demonstrated that being married is protective against cancer. Admittedly, I didn’t know this specific fact about cancer, but both experience and lots of data has shown (contrary to yesterday’s New York Post) that social connections, and specifically marriage, are good for your health and well-being. But a new study out of Harvard and other prestigious institutions demonstrates that there is a significant protective effect against both getting cancer and survival rates if you do contract it.” Read more here.
DISNEY+ QUEERING 4-YEAR-OLDS DURING PRIDE MONTH, by John Nolte. “I’ll do my best to resist sharing my opinion here, as tempting as it is to rage at the Woke Mouse. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but it’s pride month, so over the weekend, I logged into a family member’s Disney+ account to see what type of gay and trans content The Walt Disney Company is suggesting children consume. Immediately, the rotating banner at the top of the home screen featured a massive ‘Pride’ logo, obviously including the trans colors in addition to the traditional rainbow.” Read more here.
TRADITIONAL COUNTRIES CALL OUT WHO CHIEF FOR PROMOTING ABORTION-ON-DEMAND, by Stefano Gennarini, J.D. “Delegates clashed with the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on whether to give official status within the international health agency to the radical abortion and sexual rights lobby group, Center for Reproductive Rights. Tedros implored thirty-four countries in the Executive Board of the World Health Organization to approve the application for official status of the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR). He made an unusual intervention that mixed personal stories with claims that abortion is necessary to reduce maternal deaths, one of the principal claims of CRR. When it became clear that over one dozen countries would vote against CRR’s application, Tedros begged them to approve the application conditionally for only a year.” Read more here.
DOCTORS PRESSURED US TO ABORT AT EVERY VISIT, UNTIL ONE SPOKE WORDS OF HOPE WE’D NEVER FORGET, by Tricia Borg. “Congratulations! How far along are you? Are you having a boy or a girl? Is that what you were hoping for? It doesn’t matter as long as you have a healthy baby. A healthy baby. Little did they know, I wasn’t carrying the healthy baby of which they spoke. This well-meaning statement got me thinking: have we reached a point where we glorify health more than we honor life itself? I might not have been carrying a healthy baby in my womb, but I was carrying a life. At our 20-week anatomy ultrasound, my husband and I learned that our youngest son, Michael Patrick, had a lower urinary tract obstruction … We were encouraged to consider aborting Michael at almost every appointment from that moment on.” Read more here.
CALIFORNIA CONSIDERS LEGISLATION CONCEALING STUDENTS’ GENDER TRANSITIONS FROM PARENTS, by Sarah Holliday. “In November, a poll found 68% of Americans across party lines thought parents should be notified ‘if their child changes their gender identification or preferred pronouns at school.’ And while some are shocked this is a controversial topic to begin with, many are not-so shocked to learn the state of California has proved to be an epicenter of these debates. When the Chino Valley Unified School District board … met in July to discuss a potential policy that would require parental notification if their children attempted gender transitions at school, they were confronted by … California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, [who] [sued the school district after it established a policy ‘requiring faculty and staff to notify parents of students’ attempted gender transitions,’” Read more here.
THE RIGHT WAY TO DEAL WITH AI-GENERATED CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, by Valerie Hudson. “Child sexual abuse is a major problem worldwide. But the direct abuse of children is not as lucrative as the digital dissemination of such material, and the online market for child sexual abuse material, more commonly known as child pornography, is immense and growing. The effects on the children abused are profound — physically, mentally and emotionally. In addition, the images are often impossible to completely erase from the internet, ensuring continued trauma. And the market is truly transnational; a 2022 sting by New Zealand found a network of child-pornography sharers across 12 countries.” Read more here.
FLYING THE TRANSGENDER FLAG IN THE FEDERAL COURTS, by Dan McLaughlin. “You might think it would be obvious that a federal court should not take sides on a divisive social issue that is likely to come before that court. But in the name of ‘inclusivity’ during pride month, the federal courts are doing just that. National Review has obtained a memorandum sent to federal judges and other employees of the federal-court system recognizing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month and promoting a training session for federal employees that will ‘explore the common misnomers associated with gender, why gender inclusivity is essential, and how to professionally navigate gender identity in the workplace.’” Read more here.
