Family Watch International’s latest newsletter is posted below. Right to Life considers this summary of important news to be one of the best summaries of what is happening worldwide with regard to important life issues. Keep informed by following the summaries on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, ‘same sex marriage’, gender, religious freedom and many others.
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
Pro-Life Group Ordered to Stop Teaching Nurses How to “Reverse” Abortions. The California State Board of Registered Nursing has rescinded a previous decision and has demanded that Heartbeat International, a pro-life pregnancy help network, discontinue offering nurses continuing education units for Abortion Pill Reversal classes. Read more here.
U.S. Criticizes UN Agency for Supporting China’s One-Child Policy. The United States took the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to task for supporting China’s policy that has led to forced abortions. U.S. deputy ECOSOC ambassador Stephanie Amadeo stated, “As long as UNFPA supports or participates in any program of coercive birth limitation, the United States will not fund UNFPA.” Read more here.
MARRIAGE
Australian High Court Gives Approval for Marriage Ballot. The High Court unanimously struck down the challenges to the same-sex marriage ballot, clearing the way for ballots to be mailed to voters. The results will be announced on November 15. Read more here.
Romania Closer to Referendum that Would Define Marriage as Between a Man and a Woman. The Chamber of Deputies adopted the citizens’ initiative, which was supported by three million signers. The Chamber has now adopted the draft amending the Referendum Law, which stipulates that a referendum must be held within 30 days from the time the revision of the Constitution is adopted by the Parliament. Read more here.
Study Finds Married Patients With Heart Disease Have Better Survival Rates. According to researchers at Aston Medical School in the UK, married people are more likely to survive a heart attack and survive with preventable cardiovascular risk factors than single, divorced, and widowed people. Read more here.
Israel’s Supreme Court Rules Same-Sex Marriage is Not a Right. The court rejected the Israeli Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association’s demand that the Jewish state recognize same-sex marriage. Read more here.
GENDER
Washington Principal Instructs Teachers to Lie to Parents. According to a middle school teacher in Yakima, Washington, teachers were instructed by the principal to lie to parents with regard to students who ask to be identified as a different gender. Read more here.
UK Doctor Investigated for Giving Children Cross-Gender Hormone Treatment. Dr. Helen Webberley has been banned from treating transgender patients without supervision during the investigation. She has prescribed cross-gender hormones to children as young as 12 years old. Read more here.
South African Court Issues Ruling on Married Transgender People. The Western Cape High Court ruled that transgender people who transitioned after they got married are not required to get divorced to have their gender reflected accurately in their legal identity documents. Read more here.
Twelve-Year-Old Boy Took Hormones to “Transition” to a Girl Then Changed His Mind. The Australian boy is featured on an episode of “60 Minutes Australia.” After a time attempting to live as a girl, and receiving estrogen from his mother to develop female characteristics, the boy decided he was comfortable as a boy. However, he now faces surgery to remove the breasts he developed while on the hormone. Read more here.
Parents Successful in Blocking Gender Ideology Indoctrination in Peru Public Schools. The first civil chamber of Lima’s Superior Court of Justice sided with the group Parents in Action (Padres en Acción) and nullified part of the Ministry of Education’s “National Curriculum of Basic Education,” which encourages teachers to present “gender” as a psychological construct. Read more here.
UN Agency Promotes Sex Change and Abortion for Children. The Center for Family and Human Rights reports that the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) endorsed a report that promotes sex-change procedures and abortion for youth without parental consent. Read more here.
Defense Secretary Says Transgenders May Continue to Serve in U.S. Military Pending “Seasoned Judgment” of Experts. Secretary James Mattis announced that he will establish a panel of experts to analyze the situation, and until then, the current policy allowing transgenders to serve will remain in place. Read more here.
Canada Introduces Third Gender Option on Passports. In addition to male and female, Canadians can now choose the option of “X” on their passports indicating a gender identity of neither male nor female. Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the purpose of the change was so all Canadians can feel safe to be themselves and express their gender as they choose. Read more here.
California First Grader Sent to Principal’s Office for “Misgendering” Classmate. The incident occurred at Rocklin Academy, a charter school, when the first grader called the “transitioning” classmate by his given name, which he went by the previous year, rather than the female name he was currently going by. Rocklin Academy has received international attention since a kindergarten teacher staged a transitioning event for a gender confused boy during class, upsetting many of the students in the class and their parents. Read more here.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD
State Attorneys General Tell Supreme Court to Release Videos Exposing Planned Parenthood. Attorneys General in 20 states filed a “friend of the court” brief requesting the undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s criminal activity be made available to them so they are privy to violations of law within their jurisdictions. Read more here.
Judge Fines Pro-Life Activist After Exposing Planned Parenthood For Selling Baby Body Parts. U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick fined David Daleiden and two of his attorneys nearly $200,000 for releasing undercover videos of Planned Parenthood’s illegal activities. The judge helped open and run a Planned Parenthood clinic. Read more here.
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY
Farmers Banned From Farmer’s Market Over Religious Beliefs Appear in Court. Steve and Bridget Tennes were banned from selling their goods because of their religious beliefs about same-sex marriage. Lawyers for the couple are seeking a temporary order that would allow them to sell their products at the farmer’s market while the case proceeds. Read more here.
DOJ Files Brief On Behalf Of Baker Who Refused To Make A Wedding Cake For A Same-Sex Couple. The U.S. Department of Justice filed the brief with the Supreme Court in support of the Colorado baker who declined to bake a wedding cake for the couple because of his religious beliefs. Read more here.
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER
Pro-Family Leaders Sign Letter Warning Media Against Southern Poverty Law Center. Forty-seven prominent pro-family leaders have signed an open letter warning the mainstream media against using data on hate groups compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The letter calls the SPLC a “discredited, left-wing political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a ‘hate group’ label of its own invention.” Read more here.
Southern Poverty Law Center Transfers Millions of Dollars to Offshore Entities. The highly controversial and widely discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), known for its “hate group” designations of many pro-family organizations, pushes millions of dollars to offshore entities as part of its business dealings. The nonprofit pays six-figure salaries to its top directors and key employees while spending little on legal services despite its stated intent of “fighting hate and bigotry” using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy. Read more here.
Donation Processor Drops Pro-Family Group Over “Hate” Label. Vanco Payment Solutions, the online donation processor for the conservative, pro-family group Ruth Institute, notified the group that they were severing their relationship with them because the group was “affiliated with a product/service that promotes hate, violence, harassment and/or abuse.” Ruth Institute takes a Biblical stance on gender identity and same-sex marriage, and Institute officials believe the relationship was severed due to being classified as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Read more here.
GENERAL INTEREST
Twitter Bans Activist Mom After Criticizing Teen Vogue Editor for “Teaching Kids Sodomy.” The popular blogger called out Teen Vogue’s Phillip Picardi for publishing a guide to anal sex last July. The magazine is geared toward teenagers. Read more here.
Research Shows Majority of Americans Believe Sex Education Should Teach Abstinence. A study conducted by Barna in partnership with Ascend found that 71 percent of adults think sex education classes should primarily use practical skills to reinforce abstinence. Read more here.
OPINION & ANALYSIS WORTH NOTING
Citizens of Australia will shortly be deciding whether or not to legalize same-sex marriage in their country. David Sergeant has written an excellent article titled “What’s Changed in Britain Since Same-Sex Marriage?” He explains how the social structure of the UK has changed since same-sex marriage was legalized by members of parliament four years ago. He details the dramatic and troubling shifts that have occurred with regard to gender, religious freedom, children, and freedom of speech, and he recommends that the consequences of a change to the law regarding man/woman marriage be very seriously considered. Read it here.
“Why I Don’t Use Female Pronouns for My Transgender Brother” by Michael Booker is a thought-provoking article about the transgender “pronoun game” rooted in his own personal experience as the sibling of a gender-confused individual. Transgenders insist that it is “common courtesy” that they be addressed by the pronoun that matches their self-proclaimed gender identity, but Michael deems this as a demand to affirm a falsehood. He says, “I do not believe that drugs or surgery can make a male into a female or a female into a male. Just a few years ago, that would have been simple science. Today it makes me a moral monster.” Read it here.
An article in Psychology Today claiming that one parent is equivalent to two when considering the welfare of children is addressed in a blog post from the Institute for Family Studies. “When it Comes to Child Well-Being, Is One Parent the Same as Two?” by Alysse ElHage, expertly answers that very question—not only from decades of social science research, but also from her personal experience as a child raised in a single-parent home. She acknowledges that “brave and resourceful single moms and dads… deserve our respect and need our support.” Yet “father hunger” is a common theme for those who were raised by single mothers. The research is clear that children fare best in nearly every measurable indicator when they live with their married mother and father. Read it here.
Several years ago, a gunman entered the offices of a prominent pro-family organization, Family Research Council, intent on killing as many people as he could. The gunman, Floyd Corkins, chose the offices of Family Research Council because he saw it listed as a “hate group” on the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Family Research Council was designated as a “hate group,” alongside neo-Nazi groups, the Ku Klux Klan, and other violent groups, because of their support for marriage between a man and a woman. In Casey Mattox’s article, “The Southern Poverty Law Center Almost Got Me Killed. Why Does the Media Still Propagate Its ‘Hate Map’?,” he rightly blasts the SPLC and the media that legitimizes it and states, “It is high time the organization and its promoters acknowledged that their rhetoric is contributing to, not helping resolve, our coarsening discourse.” Read it here.
In her column, “The Transgender Agenda Hits Kindergarten,” Margot Cleveland examines the growing trend in states to not require that parents be informed when their children are going to be taught about gender confusion. National concern in the U.S. has been raised by the widely reported Rocklin Academy kindergarten incident, where the teacher staged a “transition ceremony” on the last day of classes in which one of the students’ classmates who is a boy suddenly appeared in girls’ clothing and announced that she was now a girl. Many in the class were severely affected. Outraged parents discovered that state law did not protect them, and she warns parents that many other state laws would permit a similar incident, and they need to take action. Read more here.
“Can We Stop an International Roe v. Wade?” is a column by Stefano Gennarini that warns that the UN Human Rights Commission is completing a draft legal commentary that excludes unborn children from the right to life and allows the terminally ill to be euthanized. He explains how concerned individuals and organizations can comment on this draft and also sign a petition to the Commission. “No person, institution, or organization that cares about the pro-life cause should sit this one out. Retreat is not an option. The committee must realize that there is real international outrage at what it is doing,” he says. Read it here.
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