Family Watch Newswire

Pro-Life Bill Passes in West Virginia. The West Virginia legislature has passed a bill which requires a woman be informed that the effects of the chemical abortion pill can be reversed to save her baby if she changes her mind after taking it. Read more here.

Mexican Catholics Urged to Prioritize Life, Religious Freedom in Elections. The Archdiocese of Mexico City has published a voting guide to assist Catholics in the upcoming national elections, highlighting the issues of life, family, and religious liberty. Read more here.

Woman Found Dead in Apartment After Taking Abortion Pills. A 38-year-old pregnant woman was found dead in her home in Nigeria, likely from abortion drugs that she took to abort her unborn baby. Read more here.

State Legislatures Move to Ban Chemical Abortions by Mail. Multiple U.S. state legislatures are attempting to enhance restrictions on the ability for people to obtain abortion pills through the mail. Read more here.

Biden Budget Funds UNFPA Which Has Been Implicated in Forced Abortions. President Biden’s proposed 2022 budget would restore millions of dollars to the United Nations Population Fund which was defunded under the prior administration because of its support for forced abortions in China. Read more here.

U.S. Ed Dept Denies Request to Affirm Title IX Male/Female Sex. The Biden Department of Education has denied a request by the Women’s Liberation Front to affirm that Title IX regulations will be enforced based on a definition of “sex” as male/female biological sex and not a perceived gender identity. Read more here.

NC Lawmakers Move to Protect Youth From Transgender Drugs, Surgeries. Three North Carolina lawmakers recently introduced legislation that would bar doctors from prescribing puberty-blocking drugs to or performing “gender transition” surgeries on individuals younger than 21. Read more here.

Virginia Transgender Athlete Bill Heads to Governor. The West Virginia legislature has approved a bill that would ban biological males from competing in female sports in middle and high schools and colleges in the state. Read more here.

Transgender Activist Warns ‘Children Will Die’ if States Ban ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ Transgender activist Willow Breshears claimed that states banning “gender-affirming care” for kids who identify as a gender other than their biological sex will cause a surge in child deaths. Read more here.

East African Bishops Oppose Gender Theory. The bishops of Kenya and Ethiopia have opposed a report by experts commissioned by the UN relating to “the protection of homosexual and transgender persons” and are denouncing an attempt to impose gender theory on member states. Read more here.

Japanese Committee to Seek Early LGBT Law Passage. A Japanese ruling party committee said that it will aim to enact a law to promote understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Read more here.

Switzerland Expected to Hold Marriage Equality Referendum. A referendum on the extension of marriage rights to same-sex couples in Switzerland is likely to take place later this year. Read more here.

Biden’s Budget Would Increase Taxpayer Funding of Planned Parenthood. President Biden announced a 2022 budget plan that calls for a $340 million funding increase for the Title X family planning program, much of which would likely go to Planned Parenthood. Read more here.

Christian Colleges Fight Lawsuit Designed to Strip Students of Financial Aid. Attorneys representing three Christian post-secondary schools asked a federal district court to allow them to intervene against a lawsuit that seeks to strip all students at private religious colleges of federal financial aid unless their schools renounce core religious beliefs. Read more here.

Christians Tear Down Fences Around Shuttered Canadian Church, Govt Sends in Riot Police. Hundreds of Canadian Christians were met by riot police when they gathered at the GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta to tear down a barricade erected to prevent worship. Read more here.

High Court Halts California Rules Limiting Home Worship. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that California can’t enforce coronavirus-related restrictions that have limited home-based religious worship including Bible studies and prayer meetings. Read more here.

French Senate Approves Proposal to Ban Prayers at Universities. France’s Senate approved the addition of a ban on religious practices in university corridors to a controversial bill to fight “Islamist separatism.” Read more here.

Kazakhstan: ‘People Don’t Have the Right to Distribute Religious Materials in Any Form Whatsoever.’ Courts in Kazakhstan have fined at least 18 people in the first three months of 2021 for distributing religious literature, texts, videos, audio and religious items in places and ways the regime declares to be illegal under its compulsory religious censorship. Read more here.

Second Survivor of Child Sexual Abuse Sues Twitter. A second plaintiff has joined a lawsuit accusing Twitter of profiting from sexually explicit material involving minors. Read more here.

School Districts Are Hiding Information About Gender-Transitioning Children From Their Parents. This Is Unconstitutional, by Sarah Parshall Perry. “Stunningly, the policy prohibits personnel from communicating with parents on any of the above actions, and goes so far as to direct teachers and staff to deceive parents by reverting to a child’s birth name and corresponding pronouns whenever a child’s parents are present.” Read more here.

Arkansas and the Politics of Experimenting on Children, by Mark Regnerus. “…[T]he legislature knows something the governor apparently does not: hormonal treatment of adolescent gender dysphoria continues to yield little demonstrable benefit across samples and studies, save perhaps for idealized self-image—a subjective outcome once considered unworthy of dramatic intervention. Critics will claim otherwise (they already are), and will seek to weaponize the risk of suicide in a manner long considered dangerous and unethical.” Read more here.

Where Is the Evidence for Transgender Youth Suicide? by Michael Cook. “The North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network is currently running a campaign … which advises schools to avoid words like ‘mum,’ ‘dad,’ ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ to help to lower the suicide rates of LGBTQI+ young people. It also wants to bring in unisex bathrooms, non-gendered playing teams and rainbow flags to be more inclusive and make gender non-conforming young people more comfortable.” Read more here.

Keira Bell Deserved Better Than Puberty Blockers, by Kathryn Jean Lopez. “…[W]hat did the adults do? They experimented on her. Five years later, she would de-transition. But a double mastectomy cannot be undone. That ‘pause’ on puberty and testosterone shots have a lifetime of consequences. Teenagers don’t think about infertility and breastfeeding. That’s why there are adults. But the adults failed Keira Bell. And the adults increasingly seem nowhere to be seen on these dangerous issues of gender confusion and ideology…” Read more here.

Why All Pregnant Women Should Be Concerned About a Change to Britain’s Abortion Laws, by Naomi Marsden. “But here’s the rub: if decriminalisation gets through and section 58 of the OAPA is repealed, there will be no explicit criminal penalty for causing a woman to miscarry… Furthermore, if the ILPA is repealed, there will be no criminal penalty for child destruction for a preborn baby right up to term. The law in this area is already failing to get justice for women.” Read more here.

Parent in New York Sues to ‘Marry’ Their Adult Child, by Michael L. Brown. “…[T]he moral, legal, and societal wall against incestuous relationships helps remove the possibility of such relationships (and sexual unions)… Take down that wall, and anything can happen. That’s why challenges to incest remain more marginal than mainstream. But make no mistake about it. If marriage could be so radically redefined so as to remove the requirement of a man and a woman, it can be further redefined to include family members or to expand the number from two.” Read more here.

Biden’s New Policy on Transgender Troops Will Weaken Our Military, by Thomas Spoehr. “Allowing mistrust or uncertainty into the unit weakens this critical bond. It breeds resentment. It causes doubt where once was certainty. This is the heart of the transgender service debate. If those with gender dysphoria are at a much higher risk of suicide, crippling anxiety or other mental breakdowns than their peers, those serving next to them will be reluctant to rely on them. Permitting them to serve also violates the principle of not placing individuals at greater risk of injury in harm’s way.” Read more here.